Steven R. Smith – “Old Skete” – [Worstward Recordings]

Here is music to make you breath slower. These are the solo, electric guitar musings of Steven R. Smith, a multi-instrumentalist and print maker often associated with the Jewelled Antler collective as well as Thuja. Hala Strana, Ulaan Khol, Ulaan Markour and Mirza. This is a limited pressing of 500 released, on Smith’s Label Wrostward Recordings. Smith uses only an electric guitar, two overdrive pedals and an amp to deliver these sparse, organic pieces which are both improvised and composed. The sounds here are lonesome, buried within a milky haze of melancholic fog. They are melodic daydreams which shimmer and crackle along side the moaning hum of reverberating sedation. Subtly warped, oddly ethereal, fully divine. -Surfer Rosa