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ROB SMITH Salt Star LP (Island House)

Poke around the New England/NYC tri-state bearded underground a bit and you’ll encounter drummer Rob Smith from one of his many involvements – he was in Pigeons with Clark Griffin and Wednesday Knudsen; followed Clark into the great 5 o’clock whistle band Animal Piss, It’s Everywhere; joined the heads in Rhyton; communes with NNCK elder Keith Connolly in GREY/SMITH and with Barry Walker Jr.; plays in tangents to the Sunburned Hand/Sunwatchers axis and so on. Pigeons really grew on me, and seeing them once towards the end, in full flight with PG Six in tow opening for The Renderers and trying to cut through the loudmouth barfruit in some Chicago dive they were conscripted to play in the back of one midweek evening, I knew I was witnessing something special that few others could appreciate – the full bloom of a heavy psych-folk unit taking flight, like an Ill Wind or United States of America peacock feathering out of the gleam of a spilled drink or uneven floor tile. And that’s part of what’s in store on Salt Star, Smith’s coaxed turn back to the magic of Black Dirt Studios, accompanied by a handful of the folks from the headier outfits of this space (Gubler, Knudsen, SeiTang, Walker Jr., Helen Rush, David Cavallo) – or at least how it kicks off, with a percolating cosmic country turn of A.P. Carter’s “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone” and the momentous title track, kept humming beneath Knudsen’s soulful sax runs (and yeah, this is how you do sax on a rock/improv record). Side B leans into a fusion angle I didn’t see coming but am in no position to reject – “Waccamaw Symph” (what a name) grooves along a track laid by sitar, Jimy’s funky Alembic bass, synths, acoustic and pedal steel guitar, and those gorgeous sax melodies, and closes out with this end credits scroll beachside take on “Hammond Song” that, again, would’ve blanched under this sort of creative direction but finds this great evening sky mode to revel in, the right way to turn the direction of a classic. Lovely summertime record, gets you in ways you won’t expect. Glad Rob finished this one.

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