The Ryne Experience – Hokey

Artist: The Ryne Experience
Title: Hokey
Keywords: college rock lowell rock alternative rock country rock home recording indie indie rock slacker rock Spring
Label: Under the Counter Tapes

Space O begins like a good beginning, it’s as if we are summoned in for a journey by a gigantic giant that hovers kindly over our humble faces. Every little listener is probably filled with honest anticipation of what this album of music will give us. It’s a bit like like the meeting point in which we all could come together, no matter where you had came from, The wise giant says things that makes us all even more excited for this trip that he calmly calls ‘the final frontier’…

Well there we go, everybody is ready, backpacks on, lunchbox in our pockets and hopla there we go straight into the album. Hand In hand through the land that this release has to offer. Once in, It immediately makes the sun shine, everything around us seems instantly animated, there are lovely colors, pretty green grass, happy creatures that all are coming at us through music form. Who would’ve thought! We move along and happily swing around in our shirts and shorts on these groovy tunes, we smile with toothpaste smiles at each other as the vibe of feeling good seems to surround us in every possible way. We walk and dance in line, happily enjoying a good time as we wander joyfully deeper and deeper in to this album.

Everything is happy go lucky style here as we skip-jump like little children on a exciting day out, hopping through the friendly ‘frosting’ all the way into the safe passage that is ‘observations’ , here our hips can swing softly as we peek through our binoculars in the hope to see rare butterflies, cute rabbit fluff and perhaps the rare sight of a dodo. The music makes it feel all alright. Even if we would never find something exciting to observe through these binoculars, as it’s the overall ‘together we are having a day out’ vibrations that are so nice and friendly that it simply doesn’t matter so much.

Than we seem to go for a friendly crossing over a low lying creek, pulling our socks up just so they won’t get too wet as this music plays. Violins accompanied this part of our trip, as well as what seems like a colorfully played horn, and a slapping bass. It feels so good this musical happening, a bit as if we are the bears that go on that legendary bear picnic. Even if the vocals sound at times as if they had been sung by a pretty lean person it is mostly as happy as the sight of a blue sky… which is a available sight here!

Yes, the country is not only made by kind music and sang words, but it’s the love for their creation that seems to be the one that is felt the most. At a certain time every little visitor hold hands and dances around in a pretty circle as bells and a electric guitar is lighting up the flames of our satisfied hearts. Suddenly the sight of a tiny man could be spotted, running around as if he was channeling that white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, the music speeds up and the journey of going through the album is filled with excitement again. We try to set in the pursuit, rock out as the tiny man runs even faster and the environment becomes like a ramshackle wood made up out of a heavy yet fun sounding distorted guitar!

…a little bit later, with the tiny man far out of sight the trip ends at the epic moment in which we give in to the rambling bellies. Yes we might have packed our lunch boxes before, but stumbling upon that creek again it is the common sense to bring out the fishing gear and happily go fishing for a fresh meal. The water is clear, the fishes bite quickly and the nostalgia in this song is anything but depressing. Even the fishes seem to smile as we remove them from the hooks and eat them raw like sushi.

Apparently we missed a whole night, probably ate so much that we had fallen asleep under the sky of stars. In any case we woke up in the morning for a fine ‘sitting around the campfire’ moment. The album sings to us like the leader of the boy scouts who had been through a lot, singing wise words that we could all learn from.. what can we do when everyone hates you? He answers calm and in a believable way. It might be here the perfect moment to empty our previously packed lunch in our mouths, but as the music is so full of important life lessons we simply keep them closed and listen with full attention… fascinating!

Than we continue our trip, meeting up with the tiny man again, yet now he is free, invites us all in his little house at the top floor. We all feel the harmonies in our heads, going around and around, making the entire house lift up in the sky! What is this magic! We go up, the music lifts into the blue sky and we might have nothing but the music to blame it for! When we get used to the situation the music brings a virtuoso on a flying grand piano, throwing out potatoes to feed us all. They come with cute looking potato peelers and all of the listeners (including you and me) will be happily peeling them & enjoy how easy it goes; anything in this world of Hokey is perfect. We feel good as the pile of clean peeled potatoes piled up and the music becomes a wonderful palette of harmonic togetherness. The sun shines again, everyone is healthy, full happiness and joy! It was such a good idea to go on this trip, they even have the guest appearance of a blubbering synth here!

Than it’s time to go home again as after all great journeys the act of going for an end is one that must be done. With a soft stroll and our chins up high we look once more again on the beautiful landscape that this album has been for us, we fondly think back of all the wonderful adventures that had happened here, the good times that we had and even have while we slowly stroll to the exit. It’s all okay, nobody is sad we all have felt the love, besides we know we could come back tomorrow or whenever that we feel like visiting this lovely album again! It was certainly a very positive experience indeed!
https://underthecountertapes.bandcamp.com/album/hokey
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