With Thanksgiving fast approaching, many are going to want to do some fortifying before embarking on "the journey home". Some may turn to drink, whilst others may consider more sensible pursuits, such as catching up with recent live sessions in the bountiful archives of WFMU. Of course, those choices are not mutually exclusive, but if one just absolutely had to choose, I'd heartily recommend the latter. Here's one perfectly dapper reason: a few weeks ago, Steven R. Smith, best known for his work in Mirza, Thuja and solo as Hala Strana, recorded a corker of a solo session for my show at his Worstward Studios in L.A.


Smith has been affiliated with San Francisco's Jewelled Antler collective since its inception in the mid 90's. More recently, he has been recording solo as Ulaan Khol and under his own name. Smith has released haunting re-imaginings of Eastern and Central European folk music and experimental psych excursions for a wide array of labels such as Emperor Jones, Digitalis Industries, Important and Soft Abuse. Though parallels can be seen in the work of Alastair Galbraith, Flying Saucer Attack, and Popol Vuh, Smith is brewing up his own brand of hazy, big-sky worthy rumble. The session tracks were recorded to a 4-track cassette without any overdubs or post-production. Smith played a couple of electric guitars and a spike fiddle and used loops of an organ, a hurdy gurdy, and a piano to glue it all together. The live recording begins with overdriven guitar and drifts and coils along slowly evoking a ghost town in the American West where the desolation itself is the badass hero. Beautiful!

here: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/1...mith.html#more

[narlus]

awesome, thanks for this!!