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Smog > H

" Smog" is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, real name William Rahr Callahan, who began working in the lo-fi genre of underground rock, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four track tape recorders. Later he began releasing albums with the label Drag City, to which he remains signed today. Smog started out as a highly experimental artist, using substandard instruments and recording equipment. His early songs often nearly lacked mel ... odic structure and were clumsily played on poorly tuned guitars, resulting in the dissonant sounds on his self-released cassettes and debut album Sewn to the Sky. Much of his early output was instrumental, a stark contrast to the lyrical focus of his later work. Apparently, he used lo-fi techniques not primarily because of an aesthetic preference but because he didn't have any other possibility to make music. Once he signed a contract with Drag City, he started to use recording studios and a greater variety of instruments for his records. Smog's songs are often based on simple, repetitive structures, consisting of a simple chord progression repeated for the duration of the entire song. Themes in Smog's lyrics include relationships, animals, relocation, nature, and more recently, politics. In 2007, Callahan released Woke on a Whaleheart, his first solo album released under his own name. See more [+]