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Twilight of the Dreamboats

by Chas Smith

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1.

about

Twilight of the Dreamboats, a quintessential Smith electro-acoustic work, is an ever-evolving single gesture, a seamless blend of tones and timbres from his metal sound sculptures (instruments with such names as Bertoia 718, Que Lastas, lockheed, Mantis, Sceptre, DADO) and his homemade and hot-rodded steel guitars (Clinesmith, Emmons, Guitarzilla, Cadillac bass), performed by the composer.

Chas Smith is a musician who has created his own unique musical world—complete with its own instruments and “language.” It is a world of expansive musical tapestries and carefully sculpted textures that evolve via a slow, constant change of aural perspective.

“Smith’s pieces are music of experiment and discovery: a way of enabling the physical world to ‘speak’ by investigating, harnessing and organizing its sonic properties. The extraordinary sound-world of Smith’s articulately structured music captivates from the start.”—International Record Review

“Chas Smith, musician, composer, engineer, metal craftsman and inventor, is a classic American original.”—New Times (Los Angeles)

“With Smith’s music, the sounds are as compelling as his concepts and instruments.” —The Wire magazine

“Like famed composer and instrument builder Harry Partch, whom Smith readily acknowledges as an influence, Smith creates unsettling music that is both beautiful and eerie.” —Electronic Musician magazine


REVIEWS

“Although Mr. Smith uses mostly…steel guitars, bass and sound sculptures, the overall sound is rather orchestral.A sea of strings slowly moving in waves, long lost phantom planes soaring in the dark skies, hushed drones softly throbbing in the distance, shimmering metals resonating…most evocative, cutting the spirits loose and letting them roam freely amongst the living.”—Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter
“Chas Smith‘s Twilight of the Dreamboats is alchemical ambient, turning a ton of metal sculptures and homemade steel guitars into a single, drifting, golden feather.”—Stephen Fruitman, Igloo Magazine

“Chas Smith crafts his own Twilight Of The Dreamboats, an oneiric montage of metallic tones and floating haloes, sonically chilly and alien yet with a strange otherworldly allure reminiscent of paintings by surrealist Yves Tanguy. ” —Julien Cowley, The Wire magazine

“Twilight of the Dreamboats is a thoroughly satisfying piece of music, a lustrous mass of shimmering textures and evolving tonalities that unfolds with an unhurried elegance. Like a storm cloud moving so slowly across the sky it verges on imperceptible, Smith’s streaked-with-lightning setting subtly advances and recedes as it breathes controlled metallic fire for twenty-five absorbing minutes.”—Textura

“That Twilight of the Dreamboats elicits such a wide range of feelings and emotions without a beat, recognizable musical instruments, harmonic progressions or familiar musical gestures is quite remarkable. The aesthetic power of the electro-acoustic processes and techniques deployed by Chas Smith on this CD is impressive and demonstrate just how far his music has evolved into a sound world of singular character and power.”—Paul Muller, Sequenza21

“Twilight of the Dreamboats is innocent of rhythm, melody, and conventional harmonic progress, so if one wanted to be difficult, I suppose one could call it not music but organized noise. (I hear too much intentionality going on here to call it disorganized noise.) But what a noise, and what a feeling it creates!… It reminds me of ‘Powerhouse,’ a story that Ray Bradbury wrote in the 1940s about a woman who has a transcendental experience, an epiphany about the universe’s neural network, if you will, after taking shelter for the night in a power station. Smith’s music, like Bradbury’s story, is both macabre and spiritual. Its drones sweep over and around the listener like a storm front, making him or her feel insignificant. Oh God, thy metallic orchestra is so big and I am so small. Even so, as mighty as Twilight of the Dreamboats is, its mightiness seems benevolent: if my atoms are about to be flung in a every direction, at least every direction has its own destination. We’re going to go home. There’s some comfort in that…isn’t there? As most recreational drugs are illegal and potentially dangerous, I recommend Twilight of the Dreamboats every night before bedtime.”—Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare magazine

credits

released September 1, 2015

Twilight of the Dreamboats was composed, performed, and recorded
by Chas Smith, TDS Studio, Reseda, CA, 2014

INSTRUMENTS
Metal sound sculptures: Bertoia 718, Que Lastas, lockheed, Mantis, Sceptre, and DADO
Steel guitars: Clinesmith, Emmons, Guitarzilla, and Cadillac bass

Mastered by Scott Fraser, Architecture, Los Angeles (April 2015)
Executive producer: Jim Fox
Photograph by Rainer Hosch; design by Jim Fox
All music © Chas Smith (BMI)
CD p & © 2015 Cold Blue Music, P.O. Box 2938, Venice, CA 90294-2938
www.coldbluemusic.com

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Chas Smith California

Chas Smith is a composer-performer-instrument builder who has created a unique musical world—complete with its own instruments. It’s a world of expansive ever-evolving musical tapestries and sculpted textures that display his fascination with both the scientific and the sensual. “With Smith’s music, the sounds are as compelling as his concepts and instruments.” (The Wire) ... more

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