Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Ranger is the New Music Monday highlight!
Ranger is a project started by Shane Ranger after playing as a hired gun for years in Victoria as well as with his hip-hop band, Dough Boys and his surf-rock group, Get Wet.
“Throughout that time I was writing and working on my own songs,” Ranger told Victoria Buzz. “Once the time was right, I formed Ranger, which was about two years ago.”
He put together a four piece band comprised of himself on guitar and vocals, his partner, Emily Ross on guitar and vocals, Scott Sparrow on drums and Latham Reader on bass.
Ranger recorded their EP, Soft, while they toured from Victoria to Winnipeg in studios and friends houses they were crashing in along the way.
“We recorded all the songs on the road, which was fun,” Ranger explained.
“When we were in Kamloops at our friend’s studio, Holy Cow is the name of his studio, we laid the bed tracks down then did all the overdubbing on our days off with mics we’d rent along the way.”
They released Soft back in November of last year and have been playing shows around town lately in order to promote that record, which has remained on CFUV’s top 30 charts ever since its release.
Of the three songs on Soft, Ranger says that the track “I Won’t” is the highlight for him.
“I would say it captures the band’s sound the best and it kind of is dialogue between two lovers, like myself and my partner, misunderstanding each other and what each other needs—kind of navigating that,” Ranger said.
“I think a lot of people can relate to that one,” he added.
Ranger has a show coming up at The Mint on Saturday, February 24th alongside Fox Effect who are releasing a new EP.
Check Ranger out there and listen to their latest music below, or on Spotify, Apple Music and the group’s Bandcamp.
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
Coming up between March 15th and 22nd, they’ll be doing their annual Funding Drive, where they will have special shows and programming in order to help them raise money to operate the station.
“CFUV has always been really supportive of local music,” Ranger said. “It’s something they’re known for and it’s something we really appreciate.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online and, if you can, donate to their Funding Drive!
Let us know what you think of Ranger below.
Fox Effect and Ranger at The Mint
- Where: The Mint, 1414 Douglas Street
- When: Saturday, February 24th at 7 p.m.
- Tickets: available online
