The holiday weekend reminded me of a trio of albums I’ve been meaning to write about on the Range Life label from my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Starting with On the Plains by nominally relevant Lawrence sixpiece Fourth of July, all of these albums have a significant Austin connection, having been mixed and mastered in the Texas capital by former Screw key cruncher Jim Vollentine. Fourth of July doesn’t light many fireworks but delights in simple guitar riffs and charming melodies straight from the Kansas heartland. The band leaves big questions for others, spending much of the album unraveling mysteries like “Why Did I Drink So Much Last Night?”
Fourth of July tambourine player and vocalist Adrianne Verhoeven reinvents herself as Dri on sunkissed electropop solo debut Smoke Rings. After a dreary opener, the album jumps off with “Don’t Wait” where producer Josh Powers – a Lawrence/Kansas City DJ with an enviable trove of funk 45s – flips what sounds like Stevie Wonder’s “Hey Love” into a mid-tempo Daisy Age ditty. Sunny vibes peak through the clouds as Dri’s soul-soaked voice sets the mood. Hip-hop producer Nezbeat (of Archetype) dreams up a moody beat-filled canvass on “You Know I Tried,” as Dri effortlessly stays within the groove. When birds chirp and dub thumps around the 2:50 mark, the smoke rings begin to smell an awful lot like cannabis. “Inspiration” is 1960s girl-group soul sizzurp while the Nezbeat-produced “Free Tonight” captures the same new wave for the new millennium of Santogold’s self-titled debut. (Full disclosure: Nez is a close friend from my Larryville days).
Of all the Range Life artists, White Flight has received the biggest buzz. The eponymous debut of former Anniversary songwriter Justin Roelofs is a schizophrenic acid trip full of glitchy beats, high-pitched screeching, and found sounds. Think Beck after a night of sipping psychotropic potions in the Amazon. (Lawrence lore says a shaman-led ayahuasca trip in the Peruvian jungle led Roelofs back to music-making).
On a weekend trip back to Lawrence in May, I reached the elevated plane of White Flight, stumbling upon his performance at the Jackpot Saloon. I had spent the evening at an open bar wedding and frankly the details of the show are hazy but two facts shed some light on the artist: He hawked his “sacred geometry” drawings with more enthusiasm than his CD and invited the entire club to hop on a bus that would return the following day after an all-night countryside bender. No word if ayahuasca was part of the geometric equation that night.
This article appears in July 4 • 2008.
