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Topic: Chas Smith's "Nakadai" on Cold Blue .... |
James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2009 7:46 am |
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I was reading thru my 2/09 edition of Electronic Musician and noticed that in the "This months sountrack" section of the mag was a listing for our very own Chas Smith and an albumn that has was made a while ago is now out on the Cold Blue label .....The name of the albumn is " Nakadai " ..... Here's what Electronic Musician has to say about the albumn ...
"Intense and drony, yet luscious . A welcome reisssue of microtonal pieces by this important Los Angles-based instrument builder and pedal steel guitarist. "
Sounds good to me ....I have read quite a few threads where chas has contributed and have enjoyed his writings and I think that b0b also carries his albumn in his store ....Check it out !!.......Jim |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2009 6:26 pm
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James, thank you for the nice words. What's the world coming to when Electronic Musician is paying attention to the pedal steel guitar? Actually, what's even more unusual, a little more than a year ago, I was asked to participate in a live concert, at the RedCat theater, with a number of synthesizer composers/players.
Slight disclaimer, I do have a connection to the world of patch-point synthesizers, Serge and Buchla, and electronic music, back in the '70's. More importantly, though, is knowing that the pedal steel guitar can comfortably participate in venues other than traditional country, and swing. Which isn't to say that I don't love playing those styles, but the potential in the instrument is way beyond how it's normally used, and stop and think, what was it that drew you to the instrument, in the first place. For me, it was how powerful and elevated a simple line sounded. |
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James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2009 7:49 pm
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Chas,
My love for music and instruments goes pretty deep , but I also enjoy the traditional music also ..I FIRST loved pedal steel for it's purity in Country music and Swing ....Later in life when I would take anything that made noise and called it a musical instrument .... My email name is " Synthnut " because of my love for synth's from years ago, and a few wanna be's from today .... So now running a pedal steel thru filters and ocilators and step sequencers intrigues me ... This is one reason that I have followed the various threads that you involve yourself in .. I'm sure that most folks on the forum would listen to some of my music and it would make Robert Randolph look like a Puritan !!....
Actually I don't think it all that strange that Electonic Musician would mention you at all ...They for the most part have covered quite a few instruments that other rags did NOT cover such as the Serge and Buchla instruments you mention ... I would really like to see someone FINALLY come out with a good midi system for pedal steel ..... It would be a lot easier to deal with midi than trying to explain voltage, and waves to steelers ..... It would surely make the pedal steel a much more useful tool ....Not to worry if midi never happens , I still enjoy the traditional sound of a crying pedal steel in a really good tune that would be lost without it .......Congrats on your EM mention ....Sincerely, Jim |
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Tommy Detamore
From:
Floresville, Texas
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Posted 26 Jan 2009 9:01 pm
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Chas Smith is a genius. I have had the pleasure of visiting him on several occasions and have always left in total amazement of his many talents.
_________________
Tommy Detamore
Quilter Labs, Goodrich Sound, Source Audio, Neunaber Audio, and Stringjoy Authorized Dealer
www.cherryridgestudio.com
www.steelguitartracksonline.com |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2009 8:17 pm
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Tommy, thank you, although I think that a lot of it can be explained by too much LSD back in the distant yesterdays.
The next time you're in the neighborhood, stop on by, I have some new toys. The newest being, the Replicant, 59 rods of inconel-718 welded onto a tool steel plate, suspended above pickups. It makes a lot of sound.
The Replicant has the memory-implants, so it would be the advanced Nexus-6 or a Nexus-7.
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| Later in life when I would take anything that made noise and called it a musical instrument |
And it is. We could get into a lengthy discussion about noise and music. I prefer to think of noise simply as complicated sound and I agree with Cage that composition is organized sound. I also have limits on what I want to listen to.
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| I'm sure that most folks on the forum would listen to some of my music and it would make Robert Randolph look like a Puritan !! |
From my experience, the Forum can be a little narrow,at times, but I see it as a protective reaction to preserve the traditional forms, when the steel guitar was so prominent. In that regard, I wholeheartedly support the effort and share the concern. I would also add that, while change can be disconcerting, there's more out there, if you look around a bit.
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| of my love for synth's from years ago |
This was my studio, back in 1980.
Serge synthesizer, tape decks and a couple Multivox tape delays. I used to work for Serge, when he had the shop down on Western and Santa Monica Blvd. We were above the Adonis Massage Parlor, next door to the Stairway to Love and down the street from the Academy of Nude Wrestling. It was a pretty "interesting" place around 2:30 in the morning.... |
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Kevin Macneil Brown
From:
Montpelier, VT, USA
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Posted 28 Jan 2009 4:55 am
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Here's my review of NAKADAI in Dusted Magazine today:
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4762
CHAS SMITH- NAKADAI (Cold Blue)
The latest CD from composer/steel guitarist/inventor Chas Smith brings back to light some important previously out-of-print material and combines it with one new work. The first three pieces come from the original 1987 LP Nakadai, and taken together they provide an immersive experience of Smith’s unique sound world. “Nakadai” – named for the great Japanese actor – builds a rising and falling structure from long, drawn-out swells of pedal steel multi-tracked and echoed into cascading arcs. Each moment of the 14-minute piece unfolds with new, ever-shifting harmonic possibilities, and what might first be perceived as a cloud-like spaciousness begins to take on palpable weight and mass. “Hollister,” for solo pedal steel, explores the possibilities of glissando and wide tonal/timbral range inherent to the instrument; here, the shifting arcs of sound slide and collide into varied consonances and dissonances, with fuzz-toned textures and seismic, rumbling bass notes vibrating along with the hollow, clear-toned swells.
The two-part “A Judas Within” evinces Smith’s penchant for bestowing his most foreboding titles upon some of his most alluring and sensuous music. The first part, “Seduction,” gracefully blurs background and foreground, the steel guitar textures unfolding and enveloping a hazy, slowly-shimmering pulse of tuned mallet instruments that becomes all-encompassing in its density. “Betrayal” shimmers also, with what seem to be asymmetrically staggered rhythms played on pedal steel, vibraphone, microtonal chimes, and bowed and struck metal objects. The beating between frequencies generated by all this accrues into a complex and tactile construct of audible color and texture.
That blurring of the lines between sound and physical presence, between mass and weightlessness, seems to be at the heart of Smith’s music, and is again in evidence on the 2008 piece “The Ghosts on the Windows,” wherein spectral choirs, orchestral washes, and bell-tones rise from rolling waves of sound generated by steel guitars and instruments of the composer’s invention.
The CD’s closing piece is one of the most intimate pieces Smith has ever recorded. Originally appearing on a small-label anthology in 1991, “Joaquin Murphey” is a tribute to the great west coast steel player who had his heyday in the 1940s and ’50s. Murphey did much of his work while wearing cowboy clothes in western swing bands, a fact which should not deter appreciation of his being, to put it simply, a truly great musician in ways transcendent of genre. His fluid and expressive command of the non-pedal steel guitar was a musical miracle that more people should discover.
Smith’s piece begins with a single plucked note on steel guitar. It’s a note that rings with the same sort of bronzed, round tone that Murphey used. Sustained tones quickly rise, swell and commingle: sometimes finding lush/ tart harmonic clusters that echo perhaps, in a distant and abstract way, the diminished scale tonalities of Murphey’s jazz take-offs; at other times arriving at almost unbearably gorgeous consonances that echo the intensity of energy and emotion that suffused Murphey’s playing. “Joaquin Murphey” is an elegant, bittersweet piece of music, and indeed it seems a deep and fitting tribute to a person – and a sound – important to the heart and soul of the steel guitar itself.
By Kevin Macneil Brown
DUSTED MAGAZINE |
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Daniel Morris
From:
Westlake, Ohio, USA
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Posted 29 Jan 2009 11:40 am Another review
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This is from www.othermusic.com :
"Early and recent work from one of the finest and most singular American composers working today, instrument builder and pedal steel guitarist extraordinaire Chas Smith. Smith is a somewhat reclusive West Coast artist working in what composer/critic Kyle Gann sardonically dubs the "maverick" tradition of American composition, alongside such forebears as Harry Partch or Conlon Nancarrow, but with a much more minimalist bent. The first four tracks date from the late eighties when his compositional methods were beginning to fully flower; tons of shimmering overtones are conjured from the slowly sliding notes of his pedal steel guitar, overdubbed with droney resonances malleted out of either gongs or homemade metallic percussion instruments. He's a master at conjuring a sort of shimmery, floating, celestial heaviness -- massed clouds of sound in which one is totally enveloped in a disorienting and beautiful mist that seems to press in on your being. The highlight here may be a piece from the early nineties, however, a brief homage to country-swing pedal steel pioneer Joaquin Murphy, in which the properties of Smith's guitar are most fully recognizable, each note sounding like a teardrop slowly falling from heaven. [MK] (Released 2009)"
I still have the original LP of this, and I'm glad to finally have it on CD as well. This was such an ear-opener for me at the time ('87), as a steel guitarist and an experimental music fan. Chas has been very gracious in replying to my messages about his music, and it's great to have him continuing to pursue his rather singular vision utilizing the steel guitar. |
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