Photo credit: Elizabeth Weinberg
The Range
Shares new track & video “Urethane”
From producer James Hinton’s first new album in six years
Mercury out June 10th
Praise for The Range and previous singles “Bicameral” and “Ricercar”:
“James Hinton uses samples like he invented the entire concept… his music crackles with the air of discovery.”
Pitchfork
“He’s created a song that simply soars.”
Stereogum
“The music is as effervescent as ever.”
MTV
The Range, the project of Vermont-based musician and producer James Hinton, releases grime and hip hop indebted new track “Urethane” from his forthcoming album Mercury, out June 10th. “Urethane” samples UK grime artist MIK’s “Ice Rink” and follows previously released singles “Bicameral” and “Ricercar,” both of which are on the new album.The new single comes with an animated video directed by Stevie Gee and Essy May, produced by Blink Ink and built around the world featured in the album visuals and earlier singles videos.
Hinton says on “Urethane”: “The lyrics ‘last year man got left in the dark – cause man didn’t really have nothing to say’ hit me hard as I was feeling pretty left out and forgotten. I had moved from the thick of it in Brooklyn to rural Vermont, and in late winter 2019 and I felt like I had a mutually agreed upon separation from the world. Those lyrics were defiant to me and I liked that as a way of fighting back against that feeling.”
“Essy designed the record cover for The Range’s inspiring new album, Mercury,” May and Gee commented. “The design combines technology, science and surrealism within the natural world. Essy and Stevie used this design and those themes as an inspiration to create an animated world where Mercury is the most valuable of commodities. The video for “Urethane” follows a loose narrative about male and female twins exploring a planet where they seek the mercury and are ultimately consumed by its power, all the while pursued by a mysterious mercury man who they ultimately become. The ever-changing form that mercury can take, flowing, moving and morphing is an inspiration for the animation as well as themes of change, decay, growth and rebirth.”
To celebrate the release of Mercury, The Range will be headlining Elsewhere Zone One in Brooklyn, NY on June 11 and will be making his way to the west coast to play dates in Oakland on June 17 and Los Angeles on June 18. More info and tickets can be found HERE.
In April of 2018 James Hinton relocated from Brooklyn to isolate himself in the Green Mountains of Vermont and continue to work on the tracks that would make up his rave and grime-influenced fourth LP as The Range. On Mercury, Hinton builds on the techniques he established on his critically acclaimed 2016 LP Potential, seeking to create human connection in the Internet age through sampling vocalists from the corners of YouTube, Instagram, and Periscope.
Mercury is moody, transportive, and undeniably rave-infused, and although it is indebted to IDM mainstays like Aphex Twin and grime pioneers like Skepta, the album finds Hinton pushing himself outside the constraints of any one specific genre. The result is both maximalist and restrained, huge soft synths up against cruising beats to offset the compressed vocals of his carefully chosen clips.
Mercury was produced by James Hinton with additional production by Damian Taylor (Bicameral, Ricercar, Relegate), mixed by Lexxx (Alex Dromgoole) except for “Relegate” which was mixed by Damian Taylor, and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters in Los Angeles, CA.
