My Life With You

The Range “Superimpose”

James Hinton pulled all the vocals on The Range’s new album Potential from videos of amateur performers on YouTube. It’s a great conceptual hook, and certainly gives a writer plenty of room to riff on, like, technology maaaan and we’re all connected all the time now and social mediiiiiiaaaa and what it’s DOING TO US ALLLLLLLLL. But I do not care about any of that. The most interesting thing about Potential is Hinton’s craft in building these scraps of audio into fully realized pop songs. “Superimpose” is particularly beautiful, with this earnest R&B vocal echoing in the space between clicking beats and looping piano notes. It doesn’t feel like the result of a high concept art project. The vocal is all raw emotion and Hinton just frames it.

In a way, this is like the reverse of Disclosure’s second album, in which all the collaborations seem mandated by corporate synergy. It’s also a record that feels very sociable, like two young guys eager to interact with all these singers. On the other hand, Potential sounds very much like something made in solitude, and the vocal parts always retain a lo-fi quality that reminds us that it’s all just pulled from a video. He’s using these strangers as emotional proxies in the songs, but that’s what we’re always doing as listeners, right?

Buy it from Amazon.