Steven R Smith - The Anchorite

The Anchorite comes right off of Smith's masterpiece from last year Crown of Marches. That album was simply stunning. It was dark and behemothic. Its artwork was black on black. It was comprised of a single track running for forty minutes. It was dense and swirling and gorgeous. A mere handful of months since its release, I count Crown of Marches very very high on the list of my favorite albums; the finest drone album I've ever heard. Also last year, Jewelled Antler supergroup Thuja released Pine Cone Temples, a massive double disc album of what was arguably their best work yet. A more fitting name couldn't have been chosen for the album as it furthered the band's 'Close to the Earth' aesthetic. Its music could be imagined as nothing but the sacred music for whatever religion worshipped in the titular temples. Pine Cone Temples quickly reached a similar status to Crown of Marches. Earlier this year, Brian Lucas and Mark Williams, the half of Mirza that was completely absent amid the Donaldson/Smith explosion of output, put out Tokens, then Light, a CDR that fully lives up to the florid review it got back in August and will surely be high up on my personal favorites of the year. The music contained on it is more than worth the wait you'll endure when you put your $7 in an envelope to Bangkok. The massive amounts of anticipation I had from the amazing Smith and Smith-related work recently was only added to when I heard that the new Smith album was going to be part of Important's Arts & Crafts series. The Arts & Crafts series is essentially a string of limited, lavishly packaged, artist-made releases. For The Anchorite that means we get an LP limited to 500 with a Smith-created, -numbered, and -signed linoprint. With that sort of set-up, it's pretty clear I was *PSYCHED* for this album. Friends, Mr. Smith does not disappoint. The Anchorite is very much the opposite of Crown of Marches: that album was a single track, multi-layered, covered in feedback. This one is 10 short, clean affairs filled with space. It is far and wide very simple and direct. Its predecessor's constant drone is here replaced by short melodic fragments with plenty of silence lingering between them. The results are ghostly. Melodies show their faces when they wish but are far happier to rest in the fog. When the entire chorus of instruments rises up, faint voices can be heard in the background. There is a definite arcane smoky ritual vibe going on. The aspect that's so fascinating in all of Smith's music is how old it sounds; not merely predating modern recording or techniques but positively ancient. Much of this stems from the archaic and homemade array of instruments he uses for his all work but moreso from his manner of playing them. Smith speaks his own musical language like few else who've come before or will come after. With The Anchorite the man teaches us yet another dialect.

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