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Album Details

• Artist: Ulaan Markhor
• Album: Ulaan Markhor
• Label: Soft Abuse
• Year of Release: 2012
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2012-06-02

Guitarist Steven R. Smith returns with yet another alias, or maybe half of one, if you are familiar with the three amazing Ulaan Khol records he has released in the last decade. This self-titled offering as Ulaan Markhor  features ten untitled tracks, ranging from the percussive and driving, to light psych, to the kind of ambient guitar drone Smith is becoming more and more lauded for. Smith is comfortable in the rarified air of improvisational, layered echo of guitar and amp, and he is a master pilot of both.
The second track bristles with feedback and garbage-can-like drum percussion, (a sound that is foundational to all these ten songs) soaring into swirling eastern-influenced psych soloing.
The slow building chaos of the third track contrasts but whets the palette for the majestic layered drone on the fifth track which blisses out into noisy sheets of chords. On the sixth track, acoustic and electric guitar layer over the drums in a martial drone that become more ambient and dense as it progresses
The eighth track is noisy and majestic, and the most epic of all these songs, which are all epic in their own way. Speaking of epic, the finale builds into a poetic blast of psych drone, with distortion providing colors of melody.
Steven R. Smith's power comes both from his restraint and his willingness to follow the echo wherever it may lead. As Ulaan Markhor, he continues his inner and outer explorations with guitar music that is muscular and meditative and always riveting.

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