Lines In The Desert: Steven R. Smith
interviewed
Originally published in The Quietus, May 30th
2012
http://thequietus.com/articles/08916-steven-r-smith-interview-ulaan-markhor
A friend once told me about an American
man, name of Smith, who spent his time wandering about the hinterlands of
Eastern Europe and on into the Slavic countries. There, he would observe and record
local musicians and make detailed notes about their instruments. Then he would
return to America with new instruments, notes and field recordings, lovingly
craft instruments like the ones he had seen, and then make a record. The tale
seemed to be that he kept himself to himself, released the records quietly into
the world, certainly with no trace of supporting them with live performances,
then carried on about his daily business.
This was my introduction to the work – and
many names – behind Steven R. Smith. He is an American guitarist, instrument
builder and print maker whose substantial musical output over the past 15 years
or so ranges from sun baked, tumbleweed blown evocations of American desert
blues (Old Skete), via psychedelic, screaming guitar superstructures
(Ulaan Khol's Ceremony I, II, and III) to authentic and soulful
responses to Eastern European and Slavic traditional music and instruments
(Hala Strana's Fielding and Heave the Gambrel Roof).
The pattern of stretching personal
boundaries and adopting new names to fit the work seems set to continue as
Smith emerges once more in May with a new moniker, Ulaan Markhor, and a new
eponymous album, to be released by Soft Abuse. Ulaan Markhor introduces
a more forceful rhythmical presence to the desert lightning and tornado guitar
workouts of his earlier Ulaan Khol releases.
Over a two week period the Quietus took up
a dialogue with Steven R. Smith, seeking to push back some of the sand from the
myths and the mystery surrounding this somewhat elusive artist, and gain some
insight into the core sensibility that informs each of his equally compelling
musical guises.
Would you care to enforce, enhance or
dispel this biographical sketch?
Steven R. Smith: Well, I must say I like
your version better! Unfortunately the truth's a little more drab. Around 1995
or so I did spend a month travelling around Western Europe and did make it as
far as the Czech Republic and parts of Eastern Germany, but did not get to
Hungary or Romania as I had hoped to do.
But it was in Prague that I saw a small
trio of musicians playing on the bridge there with some traditional instruments
(a hammer dulcimer, a bouzouki and a violin if I remember correctly), and they
were going at some traditional folk tunes with some gusto. Kind of raw and I
was really quite intrigued, kind of thinking that there's something at work
here that was compelling. Prior to that, I should say, I had seen a show in San
Francisco by Dog Faced Hermans and they had busted into a Romanian folk tune
during one of their songs, but done their style - really fast and angular, man
were they an amazing band - and when they dropped that into their song, it's
like something sort of clicked for me right then and there. That was where I
first sort of 'got it'.
What was it that resonated so strongly
with what one has to presume was a pretty alien culture?
SRS: I think it must have been purely a
musical connection, because I didn't know that Dog Faced Hermans were going to
play that Romanian tune, I didn't have the record yet - just went to see them
play a gig. In this song (it's called 'Jan 9') the guitarist sort of wandered
off while the rest of them continued playing, and he came out with an electric
viola and they just ramped up into this folk melody, and it just sort of all
made sense. I didn't know it was a Romanian tune, it could have been anything,
but I just knew right away, 'that's the stuff right there, this is something
interesting'. Those melodies that are sort of inherent in this traditional music
- and I don't mean to make wide generalities here because we're talking about a
large geographical area with many different cultures - but generally speaking
those melodies, the scales, the emotions they represent really resonate with
me.
I did track down a lot of traditional
recordings of this music but it was through libraries, the Smithsonian, record
stores… Not quite as glamorous as observing local musicians. And, yes, I did
build some instruments to use - the hurdy gurdy is the main one, but also a spike
fiddle - both of which I still use occasionally today. They proved to be really
pretty useful instruments even outside of the Hala Strana stuff. I also would
just build anything that made noise — instruments made out of amplified
springs; a large baritone psaltery; a xylophone made from spoons; a marimba
made out of driftwood.
Most of these looked pretty ridiculous,
but on a good day they recorded well. My first attempt at the hurdy gurdy, sort
of the prototype, was actually carved out of a crappy acoustic guitar and sort
of duct taped together, with a wheel that I cut out of wood by hand so it was
sort of lopsided. Primitive doesn't even begin to describe it. To play it you'd
have to use bungee cords to strap it around your waist, otherwise it would just
careen off your lap when you cranked it. It was a beast. The second and current
one came out much better, although it is still a very temperamental animal and
some days it just won't cooperate no matter what you do. I've heard even
professional hurdy gurdies can be like this so this is just something you have
to accept. You kind of have to approach a hurdy gurdy on its own terms. All of
this was mostly out of necessity, those instruments are hard to find and
expensive. I also liked the aesthetic of it just being so homemade and rough.
That always appealed to me.
Did you formally train as an instrument
maker or was this an organic growth from curiosity? A good book? Financial
necessity?
SRS: Oh no, god, if you could have seen
some of these earlier instruments. I've gotten a bit better at it, take a
little more time to sand the rough edges, slap some lacquer on it, but it was
just sort of like, “fuck it, I can build that!” and of course, I can't build that,
but I'm stubborn and you come up with something that's gonna make some
noise.
A sense of place and space is what hits
one first about the Hala Strana records. One has the immediate sense of coming
in to contact with someone who is steeped in the hand me down wisdom of musical
generations rooted to a specific place. What sets you apart in in this respect
is that depending on what guise you are recording under the places can be very
different, yet there is no loss of authenticity. The Steven R Smith records, Old
Skete, for instance, seem similarly charged with tradition, and roots, and
seem located within a specific geography – but it is a very west American
geography.
SRS: Yes, I think I know what you mean and
I do agree, although I think much of it is subconscious. I don't think I ever
mapped that right out directly, but after doing a couple records you start to
see a pattern and realize that this is a reccurring thing. Even if you look at
the cover artwork for my solo records, all of them, no matter how abstract the
artwork is, seem to feature some sort of a landscape, a horizon line. I am
always brought back to the horizon line, and I would guess maybe that could
come from this sort of idea of the American west, it's sort of ingrained in the
general culture here. I understand that and I am very much drawn to the desert.
Here in Los Angeles, the Mojave is just a
couple hours away. But I think even more directly, it's more of an emotional
terrain, an internal landscape that's coming out. You know, this sort of idea
of the wasteland is really a very potent image for me for some reason. And
although that may seem a bit depressing or emotionally barren what I'm
picturing is more peaceful, it's a clean slate, a fresh start.
That sounds pretty optimistic.
SRS: Well, this sort of imagery must be
some sort of consolation to me or something because I'm not naturally an
optimsitic sort of person, I'm riddled with anxiety and struggle to get through
things like many people.
Do deserts generally appeal to you?
SRS: I haven't travelled to any other
desert region, other than out here in California, so it's hard to say. I'm
certainly drawn to the idea of the desert. It's sort of like when you are on
the phone or back in school and not really paying attention and you find
yourself doodling on a pad of paper - what comes out? For me it's always this
sort of sketch of a barren, horizon line landscape, and these sort of wrecked
structures or cities, just like on the album covers. It's what comes out and I
don't really question it much. My guess is that this music is coming from the
same place as the doodling on the pad of paper. It's not intentional, but if
you're playing honestly and without preconceived ideas then what comes out is
sort of what's humming down deep in there all the time. I guess for me it's
this sort of barren vista.
The Hala Strana stuff was coming from a
different place, literally and figuratively. You're dealing with traditions
from a different geographic area, different melodies and styles, you're dealing
with the past and the present, and you're dealing with these ideas and
concepts, this sort of emotion representing the geographic area which may or
may not even be accurate. And I know I definitely had a different mindset when
I was doing those records. My interests at that point were just totally
absorbed by this traditional music so what came out was hopefully somewhat
authentic, meaning it wasn't just some pose or co-option. I was trying to have
a dialogue with this music and tradition. I was trying to give it the respect
it deserved. I'm well aware that it was not “authentic” Eastern European
traditional music and I never, ever intended it to be that, but what I mean by
authentic is that the music was an honest expression. It came from the right
internal place.
I think the Ulaan Khol stuff relates to
this too. To me, it still works as a landscape but it's more dense, more
cluttered, more piled on top of each other, there's less space. Even the way it
was constructed, just the recording process is a sort of architectural process,
at least the way I have to do it. Often times with overdubs, you're layering
and building on top of things and trying to leave or create space in other
places - you're mapping a terrain. Plus I used a lot of phaser and fuzz pedals
on those records. You can't go wrong with that.
I think it's fair to say that without a
fuzz pedal no landscape is complete.
SRS: Oh yeah, we could do a whole article
just on fuzz pedals, easy.
The process for many of your recordings
does seem to comprise a dialogue between internal and external terrains. The process
begins with you preparing a space – the drawing of a horizon and placed objects
to offer substance and perspective – then the architectural process of building
appropriate structures in that prepared space.
SRS: Yeah, I think that would be right. I
mean, I don't really know what I'm doing. I very much try to keep everything
sort of intuitive, but looking back on it, yes, I like that idea. That makes
sense.
Does the isolation from your San
Francisco musical connections trouble you at all now that you're based in LA?
You seem equally comfortable with working alone as you do working with others.
SRS: Well, I should get out more, you
know. I have hermit-like tendencies and too much of that is probably not the
best. I understand that. Left to my own devices, I'd just happily stay in the
back room working by myself, and it's sort of gone that way more recently. I'm
in a sort of new spot though with becoming a father in the last few years.
Trying to balance all that, just finding the time to work on music is a
struggle and is often times done piecemeal on the fly. I'm not in a situation
right now where I could even commit to a regular collaboration within a group,
so you just keep moving forward best you can.
I did want to ask more generally about
the “low profile” you maintain. Are you genuinely unconcerned by the degree to
which your work finds its way into the world?
SRS: I'm not unconcerned, but I'm
definitely less concerned than some other musicians seem to be. I do put a lot
of effort into having the records come out. I want people to hear them and
hopefully enjoy them. And I love doing the handmade artwork and chapbooks that
have come with some of the releases. That takes a lot of time and effort to
hand print those and assemble those. I love doing that kind of work. That's the
important thing, for me. That's what I want to spend my time doing.
But yeah, I'm not really helping my cause
much, am I?
The structure of much of your work, in
keeping with desert music, seems sympathetic to meditative trance – the
repetition of patterns, the slow assembly and disassembly of structure, the
drones, the cyclic, rhythms growing progressively more urgent over long
stretches of time. And yet externally, there is a strong physicality. You can
feel the bite of the strings on fingers, you can hear the hurdy-gurdy
breathing, you can smell the wood.
It is perhaps no wonder that I read
many of your records as being situated somewhere between Popol Vuh's early
mystical workouts and Michael Gira's unforgiving, unrelenting, unyielding
slogs. Very different artists, but both using musical force to ascend, escape,
or in Gira's case annihilate the corporeal body. Is this a continuum with which
you would identify?
SRS: Yeah, definitely, I'd agree with
that. I love both of those groups and I saw Swans close to the same time that I
saw Dog Faced Hermans. That Swans show, man, it was heavy in all the right
ways, and it was transcendent. It was really something. Coincidentally, that
period is also when I first started seeing those Herzog films and discovered
Popol Vuh—another group that just spoke to me for whatever reason. I love
Daniel Fichelscher's guitar playing, so lyrical.
You know at that time, for me it was say,
1993-96, I was in my early twenties, and that's just when all these things
started coalescing. I'm not trying to get nostalgic here, because this is old
stuff and nowadays it seems all this music is so easy to find, but I guess that
time period for me is when a lot of whatever trajectory I'm on was really being
formed. You know, that's when you're putting it all together and figuring out
what you want or need to say. And that's when I discovered all that stuff,
musically. Everything was opening up for me, whether it's free jazz or
avant-garde film, modern composers, obscure folk music, etc. etc. and you know,
you try and make sense of it all and make some music.
It's interesting that you say coalesce,
regarding what is clearly a broad pallette of influences and touchstones,
because that suggests drawing the disparate elements together into a single,
rich broth. Yet, you seem to have chosen a path of multiple identities; Hala
Strana, Ulaan Khol, Thuja, Mirza. That pattern seems set to continue with your
new record, under yet another new name – Ulaan Markhor - coming out in May.
SRS: Confusing, eh? Ulaan Markhor is sort
of an offshoot of Ulaan Khol, I guess, but it's got more rhythmic elements
involved, drums on every track, a lot of percussion and less guitar wankery,
but it's still sort of relating to Ulaan Khol with the fuzz textures and some
heavier elements. Mirza and Thuja were groups…they were improvisational groups
with strong personalities involved. Mirza was sort of a really noisy psyche
band, very loud, whereas Thuja was much more delicate and very quiet. Thuja
used all sorts of non-instruments and hand made instruments and field
recordings, we played and recorded in spaces where the environment played an
important role in the process.
The solo-based projects (Ulaan Khol, Ulaan
Markhor, Hala Strana, SRS, etc.) I see as being all on differing parts of a
continuous line, with maybe the quieter, sparse pieces being on one end (the
solo SRS material) and then moving through more acoustic and structured
material (Hala Strana) and then sliding down to more heavy and dense music (the
Ulaan Khol stuff). Just different spots on the line. I wish, and am trying, to
widen that line out even further and try and push this music into further
places, other tangents... Not always easy to do.
