Rabbit Hole Reins – “On The Guitar.rns”

Rabbit Hole Reins – “On The Guitar.rns” – Single Review

In a sense, I suppose you could say this is an event that’s been more than seven years in the making.

Or, perhaps to be more precise I should say it’s been about seven years of anticipation, from my end.

You see folks…as much as we might want our favorite bands and artists to stick around and do what they do for forever, obviously that doesn’t/can’t always happen.  Making it sting just that much more, when you’re in my line of work, even with the extra insights or information I might have occasionally, I still don’t know when the last time I’m going to be writing about an artist or band is until after the fact.  Sometime back in 2019 could have easily been the last time I wrote about the music that Josh Grayem was making.  It’s been that way for countless others, but rarely did it come with the same kinda weight.

So yeah – I am very thankful for this moment, where one of my favorite musical minds has returned to our pages at long last…mind you, there’s plenty of evidence to support the fact that his previous band Acharya has never been far from my playlists all over these pages of ours throughout the years, long past the time they officially stopped making new tunes.  Grayhem’s music is another prime example of excellent stuff that became permanently woven into the soundtrack of my own personal life beyond all that I do here on these pages we share.  He himself might not have any real idea about the impact he’s made on me with the songs he’s written, but for the past eight years, there’s all kinds of evidence of it scattered throughout this very site in a variety of ways, from written reviews, to multiple spins on the old SBS Podcast and even our latest venture on This Is Just My Life Now, The Podcast, to postings at the Secret Stash Of Stellar Singles, to being selected for our top ten list, and several mentions in other reviews in comparison to others music as well.  Don’t believe me?  I don’t blame you – I’m a shifty fellow.  But there is a search function on our site.

Anyhow.  One can only imagine my delight in learning that Josh was behind the music of Rabbit Hole Reins.  Every so often I’m fortunate enough to have one of the characters from the past seasons of my life come back for a new episode.  I started seeing this name, Rabbit Hole Reins, pop up in my social media feeds…Instagram and X and whatnot…and admittedly, at first, I didn’t make the connection – but I did get curious.  I started opening pages and seeing how this dude was out there doing good work – like, fun fact, when not making music of his own, Josh is probably out there somewhere being a REAL LIFE SUPERHERO, fixing instruments of all kinds.  And usually brass ones at that from the looks of things, which I assume is no easy task.  I wish I had that kind of hands-on talent!  For real, this dude is special.  He’s had a connection to music that has always run deeper than deep.  When I finally realized who he was, I’m quite certain that my neighbors would have heard me squeal in delight.  I leave my windows open…it’s summertime and all…but don’t get it twisted, I’m sure my joy was loud, and the music louder.

In pushing play on his single “On The Guitar.rns,” I had no idea what I’d even expected or hoped to find – but I can tell you that what I did, was somehow even better than any of that.  It’s a carefully created mix of analog and digital sounds combined I reckon, with the split likely leaning more to the digital side of things.  Listen to the curious way this starts up…just a few basic guitar notes, featured alongside what sounds like a modulating frequency of some kind in the background, gently threaded in there.  Then you get some sort of digital piano melody threaded into it as it continues to build…it’s all so wonderfully subtle and understated that it’s freakin’ fascinating.  I sat here listening to it and playing the video over and over, captivated.

Of course, if you’re familiar with .rns files, you’ll know that Grayhem technically has everything he needs to make music on his own, painstaking as that tends to be.  Those are specifically for a program called Reason – and trust me when I tell you, there is SO MUCH you can do with that one program it’d make the average head explode just in recognizing its extraordinary capabilities.  You could spend a whole lifetime making one song in Reason if you weren’t careful…it’s that incredible…you just wanna LIVE in that program when you really start understanding how to navigate everything it can do, and unlike so many other tedious, somewhat boring interfaces for music making, you can actually get realistic views of pretty much any amplifier or studio board under the sun and plug in whatever you like to add into it as well.  To master that beast would be like gaining access to anything/everything you could ever want for the craft of creating music, and it sounds like Josh has got a fantastic grip on how to go about it.  No real surprise there – like I was tellin’ ya…this dude was born with an inherent connection to music unlike the rest of us.  I like to think we’ve all got some…but yeah…what he’s got is exceptionally rare, truly.

So as the knobs began to twist and the song began to shift, morph, stretch, and evolve as it continued to play, I simply had to smile and marvel at how awesome it was to hear his talent being put to use as it should be once again.  Josh doesn’t just make typical tunes by any stretch of the imagination – he is a highly inquisitive and exploratory mind that doesn’t settle for ordinary.  He’s here to explore and to be creative, and believe me when I tell ya, “On The Guitar.rns” is a stellar reflection of that.  As you hear this single burst open as it surges into its next level around the 2:20 mark, you can’t help but get a little bit extra excited at the sheer prospect of all that a musical mind like he has could do with a program like Reason at his disposal.  Then as quickly as “On The Guitar.rns” seemed to spring to life, he expertly dials it all back out in an extended breakdown of sorts, focusing more intently on the digital side of its sound, manipulating his melodies brilliantly all the way through to the end.  He’ll introduce one of the most stunning fluctuations & changes with just a little more than two minutes left on the clock…and if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself loving the length of “On The Guitar.rns” as it expands to about six and a half minutes in total runtime.  Again, for those of you that like to spend your time with the studio boards or wandering around in the backrooms of Reason behind its walls of digital tech, I’m sure you’ll feel the same as I did in that I could have easily sat and listened to Josh play for another six and a half.

And don’t even get me started on the video…it’s like, essential viewing as far as I’m concerned.  I’ve put it into this article so that you could watch it for yourself and save me a whole lotta typing in the process.

The short story made long here is – what you’ll hear and what you’ll see isn’t JUST music…it’s not JUST a video – this is art, made by an authentic artist that has a genuine interest in his craft that can’t be faked.  I knew that was what I heard in Grayem way back when, and what I’m hearing in “On The Guitar.rns” is pure confirmation that I was right about him all along.  He’s got the kind of connection to music that any of us would wish to have, and even though it’s been about seven years since I heard my last tune from the guy, I’d been hoping all this time that his talent & skills would lead him back to my speakers one day.  While it’s decidedly different than what I’ve heard from him in the past, it’s also a logical one-man kind of progression from what he used to do, that reveals the limitless possibilities of what he can go on to do with his music in the future from here.  There’s really no telling just how far this rabbit hole goes, but from everything I’m hearing in this new single, there’s every reason to buy the ticket and take the ride.

Find music by Rabbit Hole Reins at Spotify here:  https://open.spotify.com/artist/4aEVzKbZloxwkXK6Dlq3aR

Click this link right here to be the next artist or band featured here at sleepingbagstudios, because hey – why not?  All the cool kids are doing it.