STEVEN R. SMITH - ulaan passerine

(label-info) "It is a supreme honor to have commissioned the latest work from the great American multi-instrumentalist Steven R. Smith; and this album is beyond what we could have imagined to receive in response. Many know Smith from his picture perfect albums of inspired Eastern European folk music under the name Hala Strana and his tours of duty with the legendary naturopathic post-industrial ensemble known as Thuja. More recently, aside from recordings under his birth name, Smith has graced listeners with the far-reaching circular psych maneuvers of the Ulaan series of works, which has thus far birthed Ulaan Khol, Ulaan Markhor, and this newest incarnation--Ulaan Passerine. 
This, our first ever double cassette release, features four side-long steady desert marches wrapped in epic swathes of mellotron and twisting sine waves. Between the royal gestures of his guitar and keyboard driven passages, snake precious minimalist prayer bell loops, electric piano mantras and pastoral drones. From the faintest trace of ether, Smith can pull a stunning atmosphere that surrounds and plunges us into a massive inner world of stoic trance and life-affirming harmony. A master at all manner of string instrument, Smith coaxes his triumphant songs with a slow hand reminiscent of a Dylan Carlson or Jozef van Wissem, if either of them were caught ruminating with a 6-string acoustic guitar, lost in the deep wild West."

STEVEN R. SMITH - ulaan passerine