While a completely accurate count is near impossible, the three musicians who make up Rangda-- guitarists Sir Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), and drummer Chris Corsano-- have between them appeared on somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 albums, recorded with dozens of different collaborators. With artists this prolific it is never certain how long any particular collaboration or project will last; and in 2010 when the three released False Flag, their debut as Rangda, it was not immediately clear if this was to be a one-off album or the work of an ongoing group. But musicians with this much experience are also able to recognize when they've struck upon a special combination, and their second album Formerly Extinct confirms Rangda to be an active, cohesive band of the highest caliber.
In retrospect, False Flag sounds like a bit of a feeling-out process, as the three musicians, each with his own well-established voice, blast noisy improvisations and rifle through ideas as they learn how best to mesh their eccentric styles. On Formerly Extinct that process is completed, and Rangda sounds like a band that knows exactly who they are and what they want to do together. Forgoing noisier digressions, every track on the album is taut and sinewy, with the musicians listening to one another and anticipating each other's moves as if they were sharing limbs. For now at least, Rangda have settled into a sound that seems very much an idealized hybrid between Six Organs of Admittance and the more song-oriented moments of Sun City Girls, with the album performing the weird magic trick of sounding about as you might expect it to while still being filled with surprises.
For Sir Richard Bishop, whose work as a solo artist and with the Sun City Girls, as summarized by Marc Masters, has continually defied all possible boundaries, Formerly Extinct might be one of his most straightforward and song-centered albums to date. Even "Silver Nile", the album's lone long-form piece, is crafted with an entrancing, slowly unwinding melody as Chasny's and Bishop's guitars patiently circling one another like a pair of desert vultures. As is always the case with Bishop's work, vague Eastern and North African echoes abound on such tracks as "Idol's Eye" and "Majnun", with Chasny able to match whatever accent Bishop chooses to adopt.
There have always been two main risks whenever such veteran improvisational musicians as these play together: Either someone will tend to hog the ball while the other players are reduced to the role of mere accompanists, or else everyone will be so disinclined to step on each other's toes that nobody actually makes any memorable moves at all. The most remarkable thing about Rangda, then, is their music's balance. No one player ever dominates any given song, and whenever either Chasny or Bishop steps forward to take a solo, the other works with Corsano to keep things continually engaging in the background.
Whenever a trio is able to achieve a balance like that, it usually means there is some world-class drumming going on, and that is the case with Corsano on Formerly Extinct. Rangda's songs are oddly built creatures, filled with enough abrupt time changes and strange meters for me to wonder if any of this might qualify as math-rock. Throughout the album Corsano is able to keep everything moving so deftly his playing seems almost nonchalant, his rhythms continually churning and roiling but never sounding particularly flashy or show-offish.
As satisfying as Formerly Extinct sounds, it also drops a few tantalizing hints of what might still be to come from Rangda. On "Tres Hambres", with its sly nod to ZZ Top, Chasny and Bishop volley a circular riff back and forth between the speakers with a dazzling ease, and on the brief "Goodbye Mr. Gentry", I can't help but get visions of classic Minutemen songs in my head, and it leads me to wish for a track or two where these guys fuel the amps and rip into a straight 4/4 psych-rock monster closer to what Chasny does with his Comets on Fire crew. But that's just me getting greedy; for now it's enough to know that, with Formerly Extinct, Rangda not only prove themselves to be a going concern as a band, but that they might just be starting to really hit their stride.
