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(2019) Ulaan Passerine - New Evening
Review:
Steven R. Smith has made a lot of records. This may seem a matter of necessity, since most of them come out in small numbers. But the necessity that they express is probably not economic; let’s be real, most people putting out LPs in pressings of a few hundred could probably make more money mowing their neighbors’ lawns than they will by making another record. It’s more likely that Smith makes music that wants to be made, or at least that he likes the process of making it enough to keep beavering away in a back room of his Los Angeles house after twenty years. And it also seems to be the case that Smith makes records with particular ends in mind. One way to decode his intent is to note the name under which the music is released. Each recording alias has its own recording methodology, and Ulaan Passerine is the one where he pulls it all together. UP pieces tend to emphasize melody over distortion, and they usually span the available space of the analog format (cassette or LP) that bears them. New Evening comprises two side-long tracks, “Evening” and “Dawning.” The two compositions are made up of shorter passages, which melt in and out of each other like dissolving film images. Each smaller section showcases one of Smith’s homemade instruments. These devices crop up on a lot of his records, and they contribute to the aura of distance and unfamiliarity that makes his music so compelling. If you hear something that sounds like a violin, it’s probably a spike fiddle made from a gourd and a neck fretted with paper clips. That thing you think is a bass? That’s the spike cello. That eerie dissolving sound might be the baritone psaltery, which is made partly from pencils and floor molding trim. These instruments aren’t just playthings; they’re practical solutions to Smith’s need for sounds that he can’t get with an electric guitar or a drum kit. But New Evening is the first record made exclusively with them. If he didn’t tell us, we probably wouldn’t know; this music is very much in line with the melancholy reveries found on other Ulaan Passerine records. But that’s not a problem at all. Rather, it’s evidence that Smith’s been working toward ends that transcend mere displays of musicianship all along, and that he’s done it again.
Tracklist:
01 - Evening
02 - Dawning
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, ambient, post-rock
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits |
