Old Skete
(Worstward - WST001) LP $13.00
Eleven stark performances on hand-made electric guitar by the man also known as Ulaan Khol, Hala Strana, and Ulaan Markhor, and for work with Thuja, Mirza, and Amsterdam-based clarinetist Gareth Davis. Absence of overdubs, loops, samples and delay pedals leaves Old Skete open and unadorned, a spare work akin to Smith’s Kohl (Jewelled Antler 2002). Edition of 500.
Slate Branches
(Little Brother) Used LP $15.00
“Steven R. Smith’s slow but entrancing transformation of his work from … skilled guitar drones and improvisations to something even more mysterious and involved can be sensed at points on this collection of home four-track recordings. Recorded during 1998 and 1999, its eight songs are introduced with ‘Minen Flats,’ which in its own way suggests the murky bowed-cymbal drones of Thomas Köner at the start more, though the percussive work here comes from heavily echoed, haunting bells before a toy piano takes the lead melody. The guitar is appropriately buried in the mix. A song like ‘Cities,’ with its steady, shuffling percussion and careful, structured guitar parts, suggests what Mirza might have done as an art installation project for modernist architecture. A similar sense of control can be heard on ‘Casting Locusts,’ calling to mind the slow descending power of Spacemen 3’s cover of Suicide’s ‘Che,’ but with a background guitar part adding more dreamy swirl to the equation until another more uplifting, ascending arrangement takes over.” Packaged in a silkscreened folder. From 2000
The Anchorite
(Important) Used LP $14.00
Recorded without overdubs, straight to stereo two-track using three separate amplifiers and a combination of loops, tapes and live performance, this 1996 platter focuses on the nature of solitude and draws upon a black spaciousness. Hand-printed lino-cut art, the seventh volume in the label’s Arts & Crafts series. #297/500