Wow, now back in print on vinyl, all deluxe 180-gram style, for first time since it was originally released!!
It's easy to forget that when Elliott Smith first hit the scene things were a lot different than they are now. There weren't that many sensitive singer songwriters roaming the underground and there was still a pretty huge divide between the 'indie' and the mainstream. Of course that has all changed so much, but when Elliott first started to get wider attention thanks to Gus Van Sant's use of his songs in Good Will Hunting and the Oscar nomination that followed, it was really an exceptionally strange occurrence in the indie music scene. It kind of marked the moment where much of what had been a big well kept secret would soon become a part of popular culture. We can still remember watching Smith on live TV performing at the Oscar's in his white tuxedo looking so sweet, nervous and humble. It truly felt like one of US was finally getting their deserved moment in the spotlight. Of course he lost to Celine Dion, but there was really no one you would rather get to represent so many of the underdogs than Elliott Smith. It was like finally getting to see someone honest and uncorrupted in a mainstream Hollywood setting. His music was so pure and beautiful, with this uncanny ability to make the bitter sound so sweet.
Figure 8 was his follow up to XO and his second outing on Dreamworks. It found Smith continuing his exploration of a more orchestral sound as well as some of the more full on rock moments that came to bloom on XO. There was so much anticipation for this album, especially after the fantastic XO, and Smith found himself under much more media scrutiny and heightened label pressure to SELL MORE RECORDS.
Luckily, he came out of it with a record that in many ways was his breeziest and even at times hinted at a happier Elliott Smith. It was of course not without its heart wrenching songs and daydream moments. While so much attention is given to his amazing voice it's so clear on Figure 8 and all of his releases really what a gifted guitar player, overall musician and of course talented songwriter he was.
This is an album so full of warmth, like it was made just for you, the music flowing out of your speakers, filling your room or your headphones with glorious beautiful sound. Songs about lovers, friends, relationships and the human condition, that will ring with warm truth for decades to come.
Man, it's hard to review this record. No matter how good it is or isn't, it's just really really sad. Elliott Smith was one of those musicians everybody liked. You wouldn't be at all surprised to find his records in your metal friends' collections, and for sure no indie / emo / post rock collection was complete without EVERY one of his records. Some folks were disappointed with Smith's later musical trajectory, abandoning his whispery vocals and barely-there hushed acoustic back drops in favor of big production and strings and pianos and pop bombast. But at the root of it all, Smith was always a gifted songwriter, capturing all the confusions and regrets of his life in a way that we could all relate to in our own way. We may not have struggled with addiction but an Elliott Smith song about addiction would be just as likely to end up on a mix tape for the love of your life than helping you through your struggle with smack. And that's quite a gift, turning a specific subject into a universal fear or hope. And somehow Smith managed to do just that for us. It's always sad losing someone like that. Like Kurt Cobain. When Cobain died we were all crushed. It was like losing one of our own. The same with Elliott Smith. None of us really knew him. He played at Aquarius once a long time ago. He was really quiet, and super nice. But you could tell he was just deeply deeply sad. His set was stunning, leaving several AQ staffers in tears. That was how powerful his music was. And still is. From A Basement On A Hill is a bit of a dodgy proposition. An unfinished record, completed by friends and family after his death. I guess the real question is just how unfinished the record was. Sonically this is definitely along the lines of XO or Figure 8, big Beatles-esque pop, swooning, swaying, all lush and gorgeous of course, with the occasional, ultra stripped down number, with just Smith's vocals and a guitar. Pretty intense. It all sounds a bit raw in places, but that's to be expected. And it's hard not to read too much into the songs knowing the sort of emotional turmoil that helped shape them, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. This is a great Elliott Smith record. Like they all are. And everyone will take what they want or need from it. Simply a great pop record, a glimpse into the tortured soul of an artist that is sorely missed, or a record full of personal and private thoughts, hopes, dreams, and revelations that we can all understand or try to understand in our own way. More likely all of those and more. A sad and beautful and strangely hopeful musical treasure.
Without a doubt, the years Elliott Smith spent on Kill Rock Stars will always have a very special place in our hearts. His 2nd and 3rd albums came out when the label was still a somewhat small and emerging indie usually more associated with riot grrrl and the artier side of indie rock and punk than dreamy wistful folk. His self titled album and Either/Or spoke to all of us, across the board, even to ears that weren't at all used to hearing just one man and a guitar. This was several years before any kind of new folk revival.
This two disc collection features recordings from that era that didn't make it on to either of those two amazing records, but many of which are just as great and jaw dropping as the ones that did. As much as he would later be attracted to grander orchestration and a lush and full sound, there is something about when it was just him and his guitar, that perfect voice, so moving and vulnerable. So many in our generation can remember watching the Oscars for the first time ever with true excitement, when he was nominated for "Miss Misery." When he took the stage in his white tuxedo there was something so honest and real happening in a space that is usually void of true emotion and honest heartbreak. Of course Celine Dion walked away with the statue, but that night you couldn't help but feel so proud that this gifted songwriter was getting the widespread attention he deserved. Not much was added or done to these stripped down recordings. But they really didn't need it anyway. The songs are practically perfect as they are. It's just another reminder that not many people are capable of creating bitter beautiful sounds as sweetly at Elliott Smith did. And sometimes the emotional cost is devastating. These aren't just some unnecessary out takes from a famous dead name. These are songs that will find their way on to any Elliott Smith mix you will make from now on. Simply said, a must have for anyone who loved his music as much as we did.
We were beginning to worry about Mr Smith. After so much critical hoopla and even a performance on the Academy Awards, you would think he would have been a perennial on the Hollywood party circuit, but instead he just up and disappeared. We were beginning to fear the worst. Maybe he picked up some of his old bad habits, pawned his guitar and was wandering the streets. Or worse?! He may very well have been, but it seems everything is okay now, as we've now got this two song 7" and look forward to a forthcoming full length. Musically, not much has changed, jangly, chiming guitars, loping simple rhythms, tinkly pianos, warbly organs, some fuzzy psychedelic guitar, mournfully melancholy melodies and Smith's sweet, aching, gorgeously whispery vocals. Nice to have him back, safe and sound, warm and dry.
Wow, now back in print on vinyl, all deluxe 180-gram style, for first time since it was originally released!!
It's easy to forget that when Elliott Smith first hit the scene things were a lot different than they are now. There weren't that many sensitive singer songwriters roaming the underground and there was still a pretty huge divide between the 'indie' and the mainstream. Of course that has all changed so much, but when Elliott first started to get wider attention thanks to Gus Van Sant's use of his songs in Good Will Hunting and the Oscar nomination that followed, it was really an exceptionally strange occurrence in the indie music scene. It kind of marked the moment where much of what had been a big well kept secret would soon become a part of popular culture. We can still remember watching Smith on live TV performing at the Oscar's in his white tuxedo looking so sweet, nervous and humble. It truly felt like one of US was finally getting their deserved moment in the spotlight. Of course he lost to Celine Dion, but there was really no one you would rather get to represent so many of the underdogs than Elliott Smith. It was like finally getting to see someone honest and uncorrupted in a mainstream Hollywood setting. His music was so pure and beautiful, with this uncanny ability to make the bitter sound so sweet.
XO was Smith's major label debut and he took full advantage of a bigger budget, and more time in he studio to explore and reach further, honing his amazing ability to construct and orchestrate grand yet never bloated pop songs. There was still lots of the more minimal moments, stark songsmithery and delicate fingerpicking, all hallmarks of his earlier work, but there was a new lush and and much fuller sound on XO. Without trying to sound too hyperbolic, XO is as close to a perfect pop record as you can get. We can't count the times that one of these songs was put on a mixtape we made, or was played over and over and over as it so closely corresponded to a relationship we were having or a moment in time we were going through.
He never hid the fact that he was hugely influenced by The Kinks and The Beatles and while countless others made careers out of trying to rip off both of those bands, Smith managed to tap into the internal world of those bands, their amazing melodies and moods, like no one else has, carrying the torch for smart, sincere, heartfelt and truly timeless pop music.
This is an album so full of warmth, like it was made just for you, the music flowing out of your speakers, filling your room or your headphones with glorious beautiful sound. Songs about lovers, friends, relationships and the human condition, that will ring with warm truth for decades to come.
Elliott's also in Heatmiser, but his solo work is worlds away from that band... and it's pretty darn great.
Ok, here's a clever way to get maybe not-just-the-usual people interested in an album of difficult, avant-garde electric guitar improv solos. Make it a double cd, where the raw improvs by British guitar maverick Gary Smith found on the first disc are used as source material for the exclusive "treatments" and "interpretations" by a disparate variety of other artists that populate the second disc. So if scrabbling, abstract textural guitar glitch isn't enough to pique your interest (for some it certainly will be enough, Gary Smith is no slouch at coming up with strange sounds from his axe, for fans of that sort of thing), perhaps the likes of Steve Roden, Bernhard Gunter, Peter "Pita" Rehberg, Elliott Sharp, This Heat's Charles Hayward, BJ Nilsen, and others on the second disc will!!
First, the first disc... Imagine Nels Cline and Derek Bailey and a bunch of mice, playing guitar and mixing drinks. It's a quietly noisy disc of tangled strings and liquid chimings. Tinkling ice. Crystalline shards. Counterintuitive guitar-based beauty. Like a "normal" guitar track had been crumpled up and irradiated and examined under a microscope.
Now for the "compilation" disc, where that radiation produces mutation. This is one diverse batch of characters taking Gary Smith's sounds in all sorts of interesting, often surprising directions, their own music adding to or twining around Smith's. It starts off with a lovely psych-folk tune entitled "Pear Tree Tomorrow" from obscure legend Bill Fay!!! Yes the same Bill Fay whose early '70s albums were recently reissued to great acclaim. Many of the other participants, some mentioned above, are more in the line of "usual suspects" for experimental projects such as this. But it's still a very diverse collection, from the bleak poetry of Current 93's David Tibet, to the violent digital breakcore of Tom Wallace, to the harsh noise-rock of Aufgehoben (with whom Gary Smith has collaborated before, on the devastating Magnetic Mountain album). There's Tianna Kennedy's ambient low end scrape and Paulo Raposos's high end drone. And lots more. Somehow, Gary Smith's guitar ties it all together. Puzzling out how Smith's material was "used" is an interesting, if mostly inconclusive, exercise. Wow. Even by itself this would be a great comp. The Smith solo disc almost a bonus. Though we like 'em both!
Spacy and sizzling collision of the electric stereo guitar wielded by Gary Smith (of current UK power improv trio Mass) and the Moog synths and electronic percussion of Joe Gallivan (known for his obscurely legendary '70s fusion outfit Love Cry Want). Ranges from exotic sci-fi soundscapes to thunderous high-energy blowouts. Pretty cool for fans of this sort of thing.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Soundtracks from some of Jack Smith's legendary performances and films from the early 60's that gave birth to the New York 60's underground. Features Tony Conrad, John Cale and Angus MacLise. A first release from Table of the Element's new imprint Audio ArtKive, run by Tony Conrad.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the latest installment in Table Of The Elements' series of single sided silkscreened 12"s celebrating the label's 10th anniversary. I had heard the name Ladonna Smith, but had never actually heard her music before, and it's a shame because this disc is quite intense and beautiful. Violin and viola intertwine lazily, unfurling minor key laments, like some sort of avant gypsy folk, moving and emotional, occasionally building to a maniacal intensity but always stretching back out into dark and sweetly langorous tunefulness. Toward the end of the record, melodies fracture into a chaotic swirl of wildly sawed violin, atonal anti-melody, rattling percussion and haunting chromatic scales, eventually becoming a blast of all out noise, an ear piercing assemblage of hyperspeed skree, upper register screeching, industrial roar and good ol' white noise. Splattery yellow swirls silkscreened on red/orange vinyl, looking like some alien sun engulfed in solar flares. Maybe the nicest looking 12" so far in the series.
Lenny Smith is a high school Latin teacher and head of the Smith family, whose 5 kids are otherwise known by their stage name Danielson Famile. Yep, the Danielson Famile's exuberant music was nurtured in the home. Can you imagine the hoedowns this family must've had at Christmastimes? The music on this record is a bit staid, but come on, he's a high school teacher. Get this only if
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
In response to reports of painful rockcrit overdoses via pageful o' Patti reviews in SF Weekly, including those from Bill Wyman crony Jim DeRogatis and Ms. Sarah Vowell (Gina Arnold in sheep's clothing, accuses Paul Ashby's letter to the editor), we hereby refrain from further frothing up the fray.
As always, another highly anticipated Patti Smith record. And, perhaps some people will be interested in this record after hearing the stories about how Smith, in an aggressive performance, kicked over a table or executed some other violent furniture-related maneuver at South by Southwest.
Wow! Of course Horses is a classic album but what's most striking about this 30th Anniversary edition of Horses is the 2nd disc which is a live recording of Patti Smith performing Horses in its entirety in London in 2005. Sometimes the act of artists revisiting their past and playing live shows of the records you love ends up making you feel embarrassed for them and just detracts from the magic they once created. But this is NOT the case with this performance. This is an amazing example of an artist getting to show the relevance and staying power of songs and spirit that hold as true today as they did 30 years before. Armed with a band including Tom Verlaine, Jay Dee Daughtery, Lenny Kaye, and Flea, you can immediately sense the intensity on stage and in the room as the opening seconds of Gloria begin. Not often does a live recording translate the goosbumps that were had by those who got to be there for real but this one does! After taking us through all the different peaks and valleys of Horses she ends with her classic cover of "My Generation" where she laments that "our generation gave the world George W. Bush...next generation rise up, rise up!" A battle cry to leave us with after we've gotten to experience once again the beauty of her raw passion. Happy 30th Horses...may you live on forever!
Fat double cd anthology of the work of former Blue Oyster Cult lyricist Patti Smith. A 'best of' her career of the past 27 years, digitally remastered and all that. Disc one's got the hits ("Gloria", "Rock N Roll Nigger", etc) and also a brand new cover
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
We recently relisted the first three classic Blue Oyster Cult albums, as part of a special $5 cd sale one of the majors currently has going. Well here's another great $5 bargain, from one of BOC's occasional outside lyricists, a lady by the name of Patti Smith� Radio Ethiopia was her second album, from 1976, following the previous year's Horses, and is simply a great, keen edged rock record from this pioneering poetic female rock n' roll hall of famer (and her Group). The CBGB's brewed art-punk here is both experimental and hard rocking, replete with wild, weird layering of Patti's dynamic vocals, some downer reggae-inflected grooves, and freaky jamming noiserock invocations (the ten minute title track). You can detect a VU influence, and speaking of influences (going the other way), we were surprised to realize moments here were reminding us of Oxbow! Sonic Youth too, but that's less of a shock.
Remastered, includes previously unreleased bonus track "Chicklets".
Not sure if we agree with the five star rating that's plastered on the front of this cd. With this new album, the return of Patti Smith has proven to be much less raw, fierce and urgent than anticipated. Her rage and gritty frankness of old seems somewhat muted in a mainstream/AOR way. Oddly enough, you just might want to check out the new Shannon Wright album (reviewed in our last AQ List) which seems far more 'Patti Smith' than this! If anything, this album serves as an effective spur for us to revisit her excellent past albums which are just as potent and relevant today.
While recent albums by Patti haven't done much for us, we were blown away by her performance a couple years ago for the 30th anniversary of Horses. It showed that somewhere inside of her she was still able to channel some seriously charged energy. So every time she comes out with something new we still want to believe it's going to be the new record that finally makes us fall in love with her all over again. Sadly it just never happens. This time out it's a covers record. Oh the possibilities...We would have loved to hear Patti Smith covering Cat Power, Elliott Smith, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, but no...instead we get the most overplayed and obvious covers anyone could think of. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Are You Experienced", "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", "Soul Kitchen". Yikes! It's almost like she hasn't listened to any music that isn't played on the radio ad nauseum for the last two decades. This ends up sounding like listening in on someone's night out at karaoke, but without the cool images on the screen or your friends there to laugh with. Oh well, we still have Horses to hold on to.
Yes, this sounds just as we imagined it would -- Ms Smith's potent weathered spoken word going head-to-head with Mr. Shields' texturous wall o' guitar. If you're a fan of either you'll definitely want to check it out at least once or twice, but even after a few listens we're still finding ourselves sitting on the fence. Many of us here love both artists, and this idea maybe sounded fantastic in concept, but we're not so sure that it was so successful in practice. It ain't no peanut butter cup! For those unfamiliar, The Coral Sea is Smith's literary tribute to legendary photographer, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, and these recordings are from two Smith and Shields performances at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London UK circa 2005 and 2006. Quite reminiscent of the absolute cathartic outpouring of artists such as Diamanda Galas.
Japan's EM Records presents the second in their "Steel pan" series. It's not just steel pan music, though, it's steel pan jazz. Read our review of EM's other steel pan reissue, 1971's Otinku by the Modern Sound Quintet for more info... This is a later (1984) album by the Modern Sound Quintet's leader, Rudy Smith, aka "the jazz king of steel pans", and again mixes his Caribbean steel pan chops with funky jazz grooves and other international influences (it was recorded in Stockholm with mostly European sidemen and an South African drummer). Then there's the bebop meets classical hijinx of their composition "Be Bach"!
Otinku, maybe 'cause it's from '71, seems a bit more special to us, so we'd recommend it first but then if you want more steel pan jazz, we've got this too! Again, presented with the usual nice EM packaging and respectful attention to detail.
Like Fahey before him, local solo guitarist Sean Smith finds solace and inspiration through traditional holiday music. Recorded at Grace Cathedral, Smith mines classic carols and hymns as well as some meditative improvisations of his own. There's even a stunning take on Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here". Festive and celebratory with an unforced joy that reflects a quiet peacefulness, this is our favorite kind of holiday music.
Berkeley based guitarist, Sean Smith, doesn't shake off the Fahey discipleship of his debut too easily on this sophomore effort, no matter how hard he tries. Yet still he brings a darker and more spontaneous impulse to his playing, allowing roughly exposed and muted fret tones to surface, showing he is not all about polish and that 's a welcome departure. More improvised than composed, Smith's cerebral guitar weaving is less bucolic sunshine this time around, taking us on a night time sojourn through a folkish nether world of threaded string picking and somber harmonic tonalities.
Recently featured on the Imaginational Anthem Vol. 2 compilation and the upcoming Tompkins Square release, Berkeley Guitar, local acoustic guitarist Sean Smith has crafted two warm and understated records of instrumental 6 string balladry culled from a live recording at the Pacific Grove Art Center in 2004. Like listening to a dusty record on a foggy morning in a coastal Northern California Library, these deceptively simple and melancholic pieces remind us a bit of early Takoma -era John Fahey but more plainspoken with less of the esoterica that informed Fahey's output or the ornamental qualities that recent stars of the genre, James Blackshaw and Jack Rose have cultivated. Lovely.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Previously a big fancy quintuple 7" vinyl box set, now on cd (and thus a bit cheaper)!
Sonny Smith has had quite a year, culminating in a huge project where he wrote and recorded 200 songs for 100 singles by made-up bands in a vast array of styles and asked 100 artists to make the record covers. That project has been touring the country at various art venues and some of the records are actually being made for real release. The first volume to be released was a limited edition boxset made by local SF gallery, Gallery 16, and may be already gone. This second volume while still rather limited is more affordable and focuses more on the music Sonny made than the artists who were included in the show.
On this disc, we get to hear Smith with help from members of the Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys, Ty Segall and Kelly Stoltz make music by The Fuckeroos, Zig Speck and His Specks, Versatile Kyle, Loud Fast Fools and Wayward Youth among others. While we haven't been able to hear all the tracks, this edition, most likely focuses more on the garagier incarnations of Smith's fake band pantheon, which also mines country, soul. doo-wop, rockabilly, as well as folk-rock idioms. Needless to say, the dude ain't lazy!
BACK IN STOCK (we listed this on our Xmas gift guide in-between list only, some of you might have missed it)...
Sonny Smith has had quite a year, culminating in a huge project where he wrote and recorded 200 songs for 100 singles by made-up bands in a vast array of styles and asked 100 artists to make the record covers. That project has been touring the country at various art venues and some of the records are actually being made for real release. The first volume to be released was a limited edition boxset made by local SF gallery, Gallery 16, and may be already gone. This second volume while still rather limited is more affordable and focuses more on the music Sonny made than the artists who were included in the show.
In this box edition of 5 split 7"s, we get to hear Smith with help from members of the Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys, Ty Segall and Kelly Stoltz make music by The Fuckeroos, Zig Speck and His Specks, Versatile Kyle, Loud Fast Fools, and Wayward Youth among others. While we haven't been able to hear all the tracks, this edition, most likely focuses more on the garagier incarnations of Smith's fake band pantheon, which also mines country, soul, doo-wop, rockabilly, as well as folk-rock idioms. Needless to say, the dude ain't lazy!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Right off the bat, we have to warn you that this new cd-r release from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Thuja, Mirza, Hala Strana, etc) is as always SUPER LIMITED. Only 100 copies made, and we only got a little less than half of those. So once these are gone they are gone.
Six new gorgeous instrumentals, all dark and dreamy, ranging from heavily reverbed Appalachia, to haunting and spare abstract ambience. Electric guitars waver and shimmer, in a vast cavern of sympathetic overtones. So beautiful. You can almost picture a lone mysterious hooded figure, perched on a small outcropping of rock, at the bottom of a huge cavern, playing strange mournful odes by the light of a lantern, serenading all the creatures in the dark, kept at bay by the light, and narcoticized by the tranquil and elegant sounds. So nice. Each disc comes in a beautifully textured paper sleeve with silver ink and each comes with a Steven R. Smith woodcut!
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Steven R. Smith of local spacerockers Mirza. Ranges from simple spacious lo-fi instrumental to big prog jams. Very nice.
Good ol' Steven R. Smith. Whether in bands - Jewelled Antler flagship Thuja, for one - or on his own, doing his wonderful Hala Strana and Ulaan Khol projects among others - the presence of SRS a reliable indicator that you're going to hear some quite nice and in fact transcendental music. He's got that magic. Sometimes playing droning, home-built stringed things, or Eastern European ethnic instruments, or out-n-out amped up psych guitar, or all the above... whatever it is, we're always happy to hear more from SRS. Here's something new under his own name, another reverie-inducing solo outing, in part improvised, all-instrumental, emotive and abstract and melodic and minimal and sad and shimmering and altogether lovely.
This limited edition LP (vinyl only, but it comes with a download card or whatever so you can get mp3s, though we'd prefer if there were also a cd version) is entitled Cities. But this mostly calm and quiet music doesn't seem all that urban. There's no hustle and bustle here, no teeming crowds or honking traffic. Instead, the cities this evokes are ancient ones, empty ones, abandoned ones, unknown ones. Or perhaps the cities to which this LP refers are still are home to people, the listener wandering through them only in the desolate, faintly glowing pre-dawn hours, down secret streets and through dreamy, dewy parks. Ah, our meager musings don't do this justice, but we're sure that you'll find this music capable of stirring some melancholic mental imagery...
As with much of SRS's music, while there's an acoustic rustic folk element to this, there's an electric one too, with gorgeous, gentle distortion and drone at the edges. He's playing a plethora of instruments here: assorted guitars, fiddle, psaltery, melodica, cello, organ, electric piano... Slowly unfolding, echoing, the mood pieces SRS crafts on Cities make us nostalgic for imagined places we've never been.
Housed in a beautiful black-on-black digipack, this new solo disc from Jewelled Antler comrade Steven R. Smith is something else. By that we mean, it's really great -- and it's just a little bit different from what you've heard from him lately in the guise of his very popular ('round here anyway) Eastern European folk-influenced project Hala Strana. The one long track found on Crown Of Marches maybe really harks backs to his daze in the more amped up, spaced-out, krautrocky pre-Thuja combo Mirza. It's dreamy, droney, and heavily distorted. Playing an assortment of instruments (as is his wont) including "electric and baritone guitars, xaphoon, fretted hurdy gurdy, baritone psaltery, noah bells, organ, electric piano, bowed cymbals, tympani", Smith has crafted a billowing psych-scape that will embrace you in its darkness, a thickly ambient bliss-out of 40+ minutes duration, that ends with lonely horn (?) melodies surfacing amidst the somber, drifting electric muzz. Recommended! Crown Of Marches is a one-man effort that could / should appeal to fans of all sorts of droney bands such as Tarentel, Mogwai, SUNNO))), Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Labradford, Davis Redford Triad, Doktor Kettu, Kinski, Acid Mothers Temple, Bardo Pond... and of course Mirza, Thuja and Hala Strana.
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
Here's what we had to say about this gorgeous ep when we first listed it way back when:
New, old material from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Mirza & Thuja). Four covers done by Mr. Smith that were released previously only on vinyl, two from a now out of print 7" and two never before released tracks. If you've heard Steven R. Smith's other recordings you're probably aware that he excels in the art of whiskey soaked, tape saturated drone rock. His cover of Leonard Cohen's "I Tried To Leave You", which starts off the disk certainly testifies to that. All the best moments of the Dirty Three, but with the balls of the Velvet Underground and somehow wrapping into it all the garagey psychedelia of Six Organs of Admittance or Vibracathedral Orchestra. Along with the Cohen' track are covers of the Smiths ("Death of a Disco Dancer"), the Grateful Dead's old standby "Morning Due" (equally brilliantly liberated a la Einsturzende Neubauten's version) and a cover of Muzsikas' "Regen Volt, Soka Lesz." And, we might add, all done as instrumentals. For those of you who haven't heard his albums yet, this is a really great introduction to Smith's mysterious and romantic sonic world!
WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT A DOZEN COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
Steven R. Smith? Hoozat? Well perhaps you know the name Hala Strana a bit better... we know lotsa AQ customers who are slavish followers of the Slavic psych-folk conjured by Steven R. Smith under that name! But the fellow has also been an important member of Thuja and Mirza and done some solo recordings too, two of which we've just gotten back in stock in a bit of a "warehouse" (or apartment closet) find...get 'em while you can!
Before his imagination fled into the shadows of walled hamlets and wooden chapels and evolved the mysteries of Hala Strana out of East European traditional musics, Steven R. Smith was busily making soundtracks for more barren landscapes. From Ashes Come (1999) and Slate Branches (2000) are characterized by atmospheres constructed around the electric guitar, both records being chock full of epic riffs and apocalyptic crescendos that take their time growing from the bracken and ashes of weird percussion, drones, bowed wails and toy piano melodies. Wonderful, lonely, reverb soaked instrumentals that make perfect rainy day soundtracks. Steven R. Smith has always been an inventor of instruments, and while now he's more obsessed with experimenting with the mechanics and tonalities of Hungarian traditional instruments, on these earlier records recorded under his own name we recognize a spirit more akin to Harry Partch, where unusual and/or abandoned objects are modified and given a musical -- if only fleeting -- life. Perhaps with some of the earliest Thuja, these recordings are very much at the root of things for what was to become the Jewelled Antler family tree. (If you're not convinced you need them both, From Ashes Come might be closer in nature to the epic moods of Mirza while Slate Branches indulges more in sublime tonalities and atmospheres before divulging its rock).
Steven R. Smith's "Kohl" is a relative departure from his typical output of repeated motifs structuring a cinematic psychedelia; instead, Smith delves wholeheartedly into meandering improvisations for dreamy, echoplexed guitar not all that far from the impressionistic work of Loren Mazzacane Connors or The Dirty Three. Steven R. Smith is also, of course, a current member of the way-out psychedelic improvisers Thuja. The cd comes packaged with a beautiful booklet with illustrations, woodcuts, tiny packets of dirt and seeds. Quite beautiful. Only complaint: packaged awkwardly in an oversized plastic bag (well, you can't fit all that dirt and seed in a conventional jewel case). But don't let that deter you from picking up this lovely disc.
Still active in the San Francisco avant-drone-improv-rock ensemble Thuja in spite of his move down to Los Angeles, Steven R. Smith quietly presents another fantastic solo album of his distinctively cinematic psychedelia. In a better world, Smith's work would get the same universal acclaim as the syrupy melodramatic glop of Sigur Ros or the socially conscious marches of Godspeed! You Black Emperor. But as it stands, Smith's revelatory instrumentals of bittersweet leitmotifs and sublime crescendos remain one of the greatest secrets in the expansive realms of avant-rock. Where Thuja explores the theatre of atmosphere, Smith's solo work is firmly grounded within a simple, yet very expressive use of melody. Smith announces the beginning of each of the songs on "Lineaments" (as with his previous recordings) with a lilting melodic stanza for fuzzed organ or drone guitar which repeats itself throughout the entirety of the song. Around this basic structure, Smith builds incremental layers of sound through complementary overtones, golden applications of spring reverb, and scribbled flourishes from additional organs, guitars, violins, and other less typical instrumentation. While Smith's solo process involve a considerable amount of multi-track production, he -- like Thuja and the interconnective Jewelled Antler gaggle -- relies upon spontaneity in the construction of these scores to give his music a floating effortlessness. "Lineaments" is no exception to Smith's outstanding body of work, and definitely gets the thumbs up from Aquarius.
The latest from this aQ beloved guitarist, whose musical resume features many all time favorites that no doubt most long time readers of the aQ list hold near and dear, which besides a clutch of amazing solo records, also includes records by Ulaan Kohl, Thuja, Hala Strana, and more. This new lp was released on Smith's own label, Worstward, and finds the guitarist stripping his sound way down, Old Skete being essentially a solo electric guitar record. Just an amp, a couple pedals and a guitar, all recorded live, no overdubs, no loops, no samples, and the results are as you might imagine quite sublime. The sound spare and intimate, but somehow simultaneously rich and layered and lush, a little bit Appalachia, a little bit avant blues, the playing textural and lyrical, Smith's guitar humming, and buzzing, occasionally almost roaring, but for the most part quite restrained, subtly twangy here and there, lots of overtones and interwoven melodies, some of the parts sound downright Slint-y, with much of the record sounding surprisingly propulsive and post rocky, especially for a somewhat meditative solo guitar record, while elsewhere the record is more haunting and hushed, tending toward the sort of dusty dusky desert twangscapes of Earth and Barn Owl, some with a distinctly Morricone vibe, and you can certainly here hints of Smith's past projects in the melodies and arrangements, but here pulled apart and laid bare, Smith letting chords ring out, tones fade into the ether, a gorgeous display of introspective guitarscaping that manages to be both warm and intimate, cinematic and darkly dreamy, and thus wholeheartedly recommended.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in super heavy two color screen printed Stumptown cardstock jackets, with cool printed woodcut style inserts.
Reverberant electric crackle opens the album, like you've got your ears wedged right there next to the pickups on Steven R. Smith's guitar. In a surprise move for S.R.S. fans, his unadorned, dolefully sonorous voice then wails gently and lamentingly over this sometimes thick, sometimes sparse, very droney music. This disc is mostly just vocals and guitar (and occasional other, acoustic instrumentation), slow and sad and distorted. It's a very intimate, raw duet for hushed, humming folky singing and whale-call psych guitar, dissonant yet melodic ...oooh lovely. Definitely something that fans of recent Richard Youngs and Six Organs Of Admittance and Dan Higgs should check out. Steven R. Smith fans too without question, even though you've never heard him like this before (singing)! At times his vocals come across like Kurt Cobain's at his most mumbled...thus kinda Neil Young-y too.
Basically we've liked pretty much EVERYTHING that S.R.S. has been involved with, from Mirza to Thuja to Hala Strana to various solo recordings to this here new album. On Owl, while musically similar to, say, his Kohl album, he's still doing something new and different for him, really sticking his neck out with the addition of his own vocals... very admirable and thankfully in fact successful! The lonely, spacious, dreamy, plugged-in folkiness of this, and especially the emotion in S.R.S.'s singing, reminds us a bit of that band Rex, from back in the day, dark and lush, moody with a bit of twang. Heck this almost takes Steven R. into the territory of another, unrelated Smith, Elliott. Recommended!
And stay tuned for another new Steven R. Smith project due out soon on the Soft Abuse label, Ulaan Khol. It's equally as S.R.S. as this, but in the other direction...
Steven R. Smith? Hoozat? Well perhaps you know the name Hala Strana a bit better... we know lotsa AQ customers who are slavish followers of the Slavic psych-folk conjured by Steven R. Smith under that name! But the fellow has also been an important member of Thuja and Mirza and done some solo recordings too, two of which we've just gotten back in stock in a bit of a "warehouse" (or apartment closet) find...get 'em while you can!
Before his imagination fled into the shadows of walled hamlets and wooden chapels and evolved the mysteries of Hala Strana out of East European traditional musics, Steven R. Smith was busily making soundtracks for more barren landscapes. From Ashes Come (1999) and Slate Branches (2000) are characterized by atmospheres constructed around the electric guitar, both records being chock full of epic riffs and apocalyptic crescendos that take their time growing from the bracken and ashes of weird percussion, drones, bowed wails and toy piano melodies. Wonderful, lonely, reverb soaked instrumentals that make perfect rainy day soundtracks. Steven R. Smith has always been an inventor of instruments, and while now he's more obsessed with experimenting with the mechanics and tonalities of Hungarian traditional instruments, on these earlier records recorded under his own name we recognize a spirit more akin to Harry Partch, where unusual and/or abandoned objects are modified and given a musical -- if only fleeting -- life. Perhaps with some of the earliest Thuja, these recordings are very much at the root of things for what was to become the Jewelled Antler family tree. (If you're not convinced you need them both, From Ashes Come might be closer in nature to the epic moods of Mirza while Slate Branches indulges more in sublime tonalities and atmospheres before divulging its rock).
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
Fifth (almost) full-length release by ex-local drone rocker Steven R. Smith (of Thuja and Mirza.) Right before the recording of Tableland, Steven invested in a brand new 8-track recording deck and "Tableland" could well be considered a christening of the new machine. It's probably important to note that the move from 4 tracks to 8 tracks does not equate with a move to overproduction. No, the lush and saturated qualities that are so indicative of Steven R. Smith's recordings are still here to envelope you like a warm wool blanket on a cold day. Five new instrumentals make up "Tableland" and Steven fills out his lonesome arrangements with reverb drenched guitars, bowed metal stringed instruments (possibly zithers?), swelling organs, bells, drums, piano and various other instruments resulting in grainy film scores for non-existent films. So totally gorgeous.
WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT 10 COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
A super limited lp only release from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Thuja, Mirza, Hala Strana). This is part SEVEN in Important Records' "Arts & Crafts" series, and is essentially a brand new full length album. The sticker on the front name drops Popol Vuh and Arvo Part, and while we do hear some of that, we also hear lots of Nadja and Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck and that sort of foggy fuzzy dreamy drift. The magic of Smith is that he creates those impossibly gauzy sound worlds without a computer or loads of processing, just a bizarre arsenal of sound making implements and a dangerously deft hand. Fretted spike fiddle, fretted hurdy gurdy, psaltery, cello, xaphoon, bombard, ney, bouzouki, glcokenspiel, organ, hand drum, cymbal, shaker, noah bells, tambourine, kaen, melodica, electric guitar mandolute and tapes are all woven into a rich and washed out soundworld of wheezing melancholy melodies, thick slabs of distorted guitar crumble, haunting simple strums, thick low end reverberations all wrapped up in a dense sonic fog. Some ancient otherworld observed through old photographs or a dusty old oracle. Lovely and mysterious.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Packaged in gorgeous hand screened sleeves, with an original linocut, created, printed, signed and numbered by Smith, affixed to the front.
LA based guitarist Steven R. Smith returns with this double vinyl release, a split... with himself, essentially! Sides A and B featuring S.R.S.; sides C and D, S.R.S. again - in his Ulaan Khol guise, which means heavier and howlier. Doing different versions of the same instrumental compositions, as well. The idea being that the S.R.S. half is pretty, placid, and "minimal" while the Ulaan Khol versions are "maximal", with more volume and fuzz. The concept sounds good to us - Steven R. Smith can basically do no wrong, after all, and we like him in all his projects, whether it be the guitar blow outs of the assorted Ulaans (Khol, Markhor...) and the Eastern European folk reimaginings of Hala Strana, as well as solo under his own name (in recent years the the lps Old Skete and Cities, the latter also released by Immune), not to mention his participation back in the day in assorted Jewelled Antler groups like Thuja.
Giving this a listen... man, it's good. Both records are gorgeous, fortunately we don't have to choose between 'em. The quieter S.R.S. renditions make nice use of piano, quite lovely, the slow moving melodies gently drifting. The same songs done Ulaan Khol style are equally beautiful and entrancing, but warmly droned out with thick guitar distortion and effects, blissfully psychedelic. We could go on and on, but want to get this on the list today, and figure really we probably don't need to say a lot about it, chances are, you love S.R.S. as much as we do and can't wait to hear it. Or, if you've never encountered Steven R. Smith's work before, well, trust us, this one's recommended! Also since it's limited vinyl in lavish packaging, and the version we have is a special even MORE limited version (200 copies made) that comes with a chapbook filled with Smith's art and text for each of the album's songs, not available from most other retailers. We've got about a dozen copies, when they're gone, they're gone, no more chapbooks anyway.
