It's difficult to know what to expect from this record from its visuals. That said, the only thing hardcore about it is the cover. I know it will probably not make Ross Farrar particularly happy to read a review of his new album Going Strange that starts out this way, but he's Ceremony's singer, and Ceremony's sound is still 2006's Violence Violence to me, and while it may be a sign of some deeply rooted character flaw, this fact will likely never change. Also, he doesn't have to like what I have to say; no one does. As interesting as Ceremony's evolution has been since their early releases- going from adrenalized hardcore, to semi-abstract post-punk, to... modish post-punk(?)- I've gleaned a slight frustration with the limitations of form on Ross's part throughout these iterations. His mannerisms and the way he projects himself into the performances with his other band Spice feels quite a bit more relaxed in comparison, but his solo project RFJ is like listening to a different guy altogether. Going Strange has all the qualities of a first record, but not just the first for a project, a first record (period). It sounds like it was all captured by a single mic, in a living room while sitting on the stained floral print couch, and compiled from only a hand full of takes in a marathon Garageband session by someone who is discovering through the course of recording and editing a record that they harbor within themselves a fluid aptitude for songwriting. Cautious, but not nervous, trusting, but not blindly certain, the album seems to arise out of a place of self-knowledge that is grounded in something other than the process that is unfolding before your ears. The quality of the recordings makes up a large part of Going Strange's aesthetical appeal as well, as you can hear the way that the notes emanating from the instruments cut through the air, absorbing into fabrics and bodies of their surroundings while springing in the background like a grasshopper off the corners and moldings of the room, atmospheric aspects that energize the entire undertaking as if the setting of the recording was meant to be part of the plot of the record. It also has a certain beatnik quality to it that reminds me of Velvet Underground's bitter stabs at art that is intelligible to the sunken parts of the soul, or even Scott Walker's many plaintive odes to the dispossessed, or really any other musical attempts to make sense of the splintering dissensus of post-modernity from the mid-20th century. While most of the reference points I could pull down for favorable comparison would be of artists who had mastered their craft and were in complete control of their output, I think I've already made clear that such firm proficiencies are not at all what makes Going Strange an absorbing listen. Instead, Going Strange offers the opportunity to witness Ross's process working its way out in real-time, like he's writing the song as you hear them; factory fresh impressions from his mind forge; drizzled on the senses like a vincotto made from a particularly well-aged wine; the product of an uncommon variety of foresight that anticipates mistakes, irregularities, and the unbridled peculiarity of the mind in an almost aleatoric philosophy of outcome. I'm never sure quite where the next track will lead from its prologue, only that the nose and tail of each overlap in one sustained procession of related but divergent contemplative modes, with Ross remaining as the only constant, personified in its steam, sinking out of sight when he needs to, breast stroking and stirring the tempest when it suits him, but always thriving in the drift of the moment. Going Strange is rough, it's messy, and at points difficult and irreverent, but to the extent Ross exerted the force of his conscious intention upon any portion, it is clearly something that he is extremely satisfied with, and for what it's worth, that makes two of us.
