A première around these parts, The Stranger hath emerged from the seemingly plentiful wildernesses of the mind of Michigan-born, although L.A.-based songsmith Ben Schneider. Once a seafaring stranger himself having honed his trade aboard the keels of the U.S. Navy, Schneider certainly knows his way around a gloriously melancholic chantey or two. However, as with some of music's finest polymathic émigrés to have tested the waters before him – and as innumerable others will continue so to do long after – he also shadows as a visual artist, thereby imbuing his musical work with a quite cinematic scope. Focussing on the future therefore, Schneider may soon unite opinion in the decreeing of he being one of our great contemporary musical alchemists as this, the first glimpse into forthcoming début EP
Time To Run, is the sort of gently rousing psych-folk that veritably bulges to bursting point with a familiar, yet utterly uncontainable emotivity. Featuring slide guitars wilier than any coyote, wholesome whistling to tickle Morricone's now prickled spine, and plucky string sensibilities The Stranger suggests
Lord Huron ought swiftly become a far more widely known noble. Indeed the nom de plume of Schneider could arguably be rather revered already, were so many of us not caught up in Robin Pecknold's bristly facial sproutage. Allow yourself to untangle though, and this forthcoming recording may grow into something exceptionally enormous. Become acquainted with Schneider's tumbling soundscapes and Isaac Brock-like deadpan vocal delivery below.
Time To Run is expected October 8th on
[PIAS].
