Late last year in our Best Records of 2008 feature, I made a brief mention of an informal tape release from Rangers, the one man project of occasional We Shot J.R. contributor Howard Bob Johnson.  The release, Street Smell, was an excellent, hazy piece of bedroom collage featuring excellent guitar work, bizarre samples and a dizzying array of styles and influences that made it one of the most interesting things we had heard all year.

HBJ has since relocated to San Francisco and continued to churn out some excellent recordings over the past few months.  More and more people have started to take notice recently, and as a result, Rangers will be putting out two new releases on two exciting labels-- the first will be a limited edition vinyl pressing on Future Sound Recordings (Ducktails, Sun Araw, etc.) and the second will be another limited edition tape release of Low Cut Fades on the excellent Not Not Fun. The release is currently available for purchase on the Not Not Fun website (fifth release down the page), and I'd highly recommend picking up one of 100 copies now, before they're gone.  Yeah, the guy is our friend and everything, but don't let that ruin it for you-- this is really great stuff that I'd recommend to anyone interested in pretty much any of the music on the aforementioned labels.