Cold Blue Music, S/D

Chas Smith. instrument inventor, mostly playing with bizarre variants of steel pedal guitar. fits in with industrial listening like zoviet-france & lustmord, but not as dark -- if it's moody it's closer to other west coast tranquil music like Stuart Dempster & Harold Budd. or Garlo's 'Vent De Guitares'. or even Steve Roach, but more organic. all the albums are consistently great, NikkoWolverine might be the big opening statement and has beautiful pictures of the instruments: http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=704709

http://www.coldbluemusic.com/pages/CB0003.html
http://www.soundnet.org/sound/2004/images/ChasSmith.jpg
http://www.newmusicbox.org/40/images/chas_400x187.jpg

past that I'm mainly only familiar with the two compilations: the first one is one of those few compilations that really feels like an album. http://www.coldbluemusic.com/pages/CB0008.html

& “the complete 10-inch series from cold blue”: http://www.coldbluemusic.com/pages/CB0014.html -- especially the Peter Garland, Smith & Lentz tracks. that first track on the Lentz ep is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard by him.

I was at that Palestine concert where that CD was recorded. It was great, probably not something I'd ever play instead of 'Strumming Music' though there was more modulating to different keys so there was a bit more narrative movement in the piece.

curious if anyone's heard other things on the label -- they seem like more of a so. cal or midwestern counterpart to New Albion, even more isolationist and weird in some ways

Of the two comps, which do you think has the best material on it? I'm not really intimidated by the 3 disc factor, so don't hesitate to say that if you think so.

The John Luther Adams disc is intriguing. Anyone familiar with his stuff?

a lot of this stuff is reflective / meditational so I've spent more time actually listening to the 3 disc set, especially disc 3. but the single disc has james tenney's 'spectral canon for conlon nancarrow'.

I'm a fan of Garland and Chas Smith, know nothing of the others, but I'm thinking of buying this 3xCD thing. Milton, I was put off by a Dusted review about female vocals on disc 3 - something about them being like shlock radio jingles or something. I know it's been six years, but does anyone here rep for this set? It's not terribly expensive but I'm trying not to buy any new CDs (if this comp was on vinyl I'd have bought it already, and yes, the original 10"s are tough to find and cost prohibitive)