Austin Sound

On their sophomore LP, Candi and The Strangers jives out powdery synth-pop blended with muted disco and causes one to beg, “More Moog.” 10th of Always purveys movement through space, and its done remarkably well through fleshly synthetic melodies and vibrantly blurred rhythms. Because of all the dripping fuzz and boomeranging reverb on 10th of Always it’s hard to know whether Samantha Constant is saying ‘glide’ or ‘dive.’ But somehow it doesn’t matter. Part of the fun of the album is the ambience, and part of the ambience is traveling on a space ship or Milky Way vessel, as the Strangers beckon, “welcome to my dream, relax and float downstream.” The album is true mood music — much like Al Green or Radiohead — it changes the tone of a room. After succumbing to it, the listener buys into a new world of possibility. At times the album is uncannily reflective of shoegaze greats while simultaneously referencing pop culture icons like Nico and Candy Darling. These retro-familiar elements paired with a coded musical and vocal rhetoric craft an album that is otherworldly but altogether mellow mosh crowd ready.

You know how we all got really stoned the other night and started talking about the space-time continuum, and then saw ourselves in the future, but it was really more like the past because there was so much synth and it was the Cars, but it wasn’t the Cars, and we were in this bunker that looked like the hatch from Lost, and then I said, “You mean that’s us in the future?” and you said “Yep,” but then it got all kaleidoscopic and our minds were blown!? You don’t? Well, it turns out John and Samantha Constant were filming that entire thing, and they made it the video for Candi and the Strangers’ cover of “Moving in Stereo”, which is a special non-album single to tease their upcoming sophomore LP, 10th of Always. Furthermore, the quintet will be playing the Mohawk tonight along with the Dark Water Hymnal, the Baker Family, and the Mole People, which should provide a nice preview of the album before they officially release it at the ND on February 5th. So, um, wanna get stoned and watch the video? It’s posted below.