Chris Smith - Second Hand Smoke (2020)

Second Hand Smoke is the long-awaited new record from Melbourne guitarist Chris Smith. It's gorgeous. Chris has, for roughly a decade, been out of the public eye, out of the scene and literally out of town. Living a quiet, small-town life raising his daughter, but working all the while.This album is an experience to be inhaled in one breath. Calming and expansive, full of sweeping cinematic vistas and melancholy melody, awash with sometimes ragged and noisy guitar. It was largely built from 8-track home recordings and layered with found sounds, field recordings, spoken word as well as multiple instruments and vocals. Like all Chris's work, it blends experimental and ambient noise-making with more traditional songwriting. The results are extraordinary - introspective ballads, torn up blues and hallucinatory instrumentals with a kind of lonely cowboy vibe, an experimental edge and a distinctly Australian sound.