Linneman’s Riverwest Inn hosted alternative-world supergroup Strangelander for a superb night of music on Friday evening, packing the neighborhood mainstay full. The band performed two sets with no opener, setting the stage for a truly immersive live experience.

Strangelander comprises guitarist-vocalist-bandleader Steve Peplin, lead vocalist Amanda Huff, bassist Michael Ritter, cellist Pat Reinholz, drummer Jeremy Kuzniar, keyboardist David Wake and saxophonist-flutist Aaron Van Oudenallen, plus Friday’s performance featured special guest Mitch Shiner on xylophone. Their orchestral approach to songwriting incorporates stylistic elements of psychedelic rock, jazz, funk, blues, East Indian music and more, with lyrics exploring themes of fantasy and adventure.

The project originated in 2016 when Peplin had a then-unnamed record written, as he explains. “It had no vocals on it yet, but the day I heard Amanda Huff for the first time, I called her up and asked if she wanted to be on this record. She said yes, and that’s how Strangelander came about. I got the band’s name from researching the Mandela Effect, thinking about the idea that I’m a “strangelander” from another world and I wrote it down. It became the band name instantly.”

Strangelander released a record called “Odiar Evil” in 2021, recorded live at WMSE. “The title is a permutation of the phrase “live radio” but “odiar” also means “to hate” in Spanish,” Peplin shares. “I had really wanted to go on the air with Billy Cicirelli, who was the engineer there at the time. He mixed that record and said it was one of his crowning achievements.”

The band has released two singles since then, “Strang3r” and “Atlas Obscura”, which both will be on Strangelander’s forthcoming sophomore album. “The 3 is in the title of “Strang3r” because it’s three minutes and 33 seconds long, and it’s our third release – all totally coincidental,” Peplin notes.

That said, Peplin hopes that the album will be out by October. Describing its writing and recording process, Peplin said, “Our first record was written in a week and we recorded it in three and a half hours; this one I’ve been working on for seven years. There’s two tunes on there that use a full symphony orchestra because it’s basically like a fantasy opera; there’s a character named Nuit, and every time she shows up there’s full orchestra to represent the fact that she’s like an Egyptian goddess. I’ve been piecemealing it together and it’s taking forever. A guy named Meko Stanosevic engineering it and he’s great.”

Strangelander plays Cactus Club on April 5th.