It was a warm summer night. I had just finished teaching my mom how to fill out an application using my computer and that Dallas was a city, not a state. I would have thought she knew that already, since she just became an American citizen and took months learning these things.

But she made it a point to dump everything she forced herself to learn for that exam along with other basic knowledge. Currently, I'm not sure what's missing from her memory and am on edge not knowing whether I'm going to have to teach her how to use the remote control again or in which direction doors open.

Ransom Scenery album cover for Ear To Ear — Ransom Scenery's awesome cover [image from Bandcamp]

After this, I'm too flustered to get back into my regular routine of browsing for musical greatness and at random, I meet the glaringly interesting image of a bird carcass album cover which promptly followed with me downloading Ransom Scenery's track My Electric Shield along with their new full-length release Ear To Ear.[bandcamp width=100% height=42 track=433574506 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]

Part of changing up my listening routine was to set the track listening order to random for every listen because I'm the only one in the world doing that, right?

The longest track on here is the lush and gaze-heavy All My, which is made up entirely of a three-chord progressive loop where they drift and drizzle their wonderfully special blend of atmosphere and vocals all over and around it.

Just Tour is the kind of track which starts as a glitchy pattern of verse and turns -- if for several seconds -- into an enticing beat that's too good to let go. But they're quick to move on to experiment with a catchier melody for the chorus and then dip into the 'vast and heavy' from their paint palette of expressions.

My compulsion to match up tracks with similar titles such as My Golden Shield, their first single, to see how it related to their Electric track I first downloaded seems obvious for the titles, where, were they to perform those two tracks live with the intention to follow one with the other, I'd say they break right into the synth parts of Electric to amp up the transition.

And that's not to say that their ambient 'ear' isn't dynamic. Actually, there are dynamics all over their work which is also catchy.

[bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=671723282 size=large bgcol=333333 linkcol=9a64ff tracklist=false]

For instance Slowly Spinning is magnificently effective and as powerful as any Polaroid score I've ever heard and if the world were a better place, Holozoic would be mainstream pop music. And yes, my world is a perfect world.

I also love their use of bass where it walks around the music like a lean, aged goth-punk guy who stalks with purpose, with arms crossed before it tunes out dramatically in other parts -- often of the same song -- similar to what Dead Can Dance did with one of my favorite albums of their's Aion. I must have played Black Sun three million times to know it's true.

But with every listen of Ear To Ear I make new discoveries about the tones I like and the distinct patterns of their swirling architecture of sounds. I'm reminded of Snowden's Anti-Anti, which I took with me to Abilene ten years ago and that's important because I wandered the old historic downtown area and the desolate industrial sections by myself to those tracks.

Also, the densely multicolored, vapor-filled rooms of that one Bear In Heaven album I'll never forget, where the comparison is that both of these releases are more about the experience than the music.

[embed]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eQVLcdRfzOo[/embed]

Yes. After multiple listens, I'm dying to find out what they've discovered through their music along with me. I mean, It's hardly chaotically experimental. It's meditative, cohesive and as confident as any release out there that has staying power, because it's beautifully mesmerizing.

I like the fact that I can't put my finger on this thing as it has me dancing around trying to land my finger on it. I think that comes with maturity of getting used to who they are. I'm talking about me but that might also be Ransom Scenery and I can't wait to get tangled into more of their beautiful messes.

Ransom Scenery is my new favorite "go to" when I need a place to get lost in. Knowing that, I'll have something to come back to when I have to remind my mom who the president is. Oh boy!

You can stalk this Springfield duo on: