Nakadai, which KPFA Folio/Other Minds Radio called “one of the most explosive LPs of the Eighties,” is a set of works that offer a veritable...

Nakadai, which KPFA Folio/Other Minds Radio called “one of the most explosive LPs of the Eighties,” is a set of works that offer a veritable catalog of musical “waves”—from ripples to tsunamis. It features Smith playing pedal steel guitar (solo and overdubbed) with a quartet of mallet percussionists, all of whom are noted LA musicians. This CD reissue of Nakadai allows today’s listeners to hear prototypical Smith—music composed when his present style was in its nascent state. In addition to the original five Nakadai tracks, this release includes two "bonus" tracks: 2008's evocative Ghosts on the Windows and 1991's Joaquin Murphey, a tribute to the pedal steel legend of the same name. “Intense and drony, yet luscious. A welcome reissue of pieces by this important Los Angeles-based instrument builder and pedal steel guitarist.” [Electronic Musician magazine] “Chas Smith is a California original—an instrument builder, composer, and performer who creates psychedelic labyrinths of sound using stringed instruments fed through various electronic processors. For the uninitiated, Nakadai, his fifth CD of material released by the intrepid Southern California-based label Cold Blue, might just be the perfect place to begin since it offers a great overview of his work.” [Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox] “For lack of a better term, let’s say that when we produce or listen to sounds that an instrument was not principally designed to generate, we are playing or hearing ‘beyond the instrument.’ Give it to Bartok and his slap, Cage and his prepared piano, Frith and his alligator clipped strings: what was once a marginal aspect of expressive notation has steadily become an expected component of new and experimental musics…. Nakadai…performs well beyond the instrument and after some quarter century the work shows no signs of wear…. The five pieces—which string together in a suite-like seamlessness—possess a rich timbral depth and harmonic complexity…suspended and active states, moments that might infer Ligeti at one turn or the long and pitch-shifted sustains of Fripp at another. Beautiful stuff, shorn of prettiness and decoration to reach an absolute sound of almost continuous invention.” [K Leimer , Exposé magazine]