Raymond Richards - The Lost Art Of Wandering (2020)

In the late 90’s, east-side LA was in the throws of a post-indie explosion; a network of stoned bands ranging from neo-psychedelia to pseudo-country overran Spaceland (our generation’s Troubadour) and the local Silverlake Lounge. I was playing freakbeat records twice a week in dive bars, half of Spacemen 3 was crashing at my house (my drop-out roommate was Sonic Boom’s tour drummer) and it was during this blur that I met Raymond Richards, a clean-cut all-American pedal steel guitarist playing in Mojave 3 (the country-tinged 4AD side project of shoegaze royalty, Slowdive). I was instantly swept off my feet, head over heels in love with Raymond's weeping tone — the most chill-inducing, emotionally responsive dialog I’d had with music since discovering Satie as a child — it was then and it is now, truly haunting. After a year of personnel trials, my roommate and I stole Raymond for our own band, and not only did he smother our songs with his enchanting steel, he was virtuosic with a variety of atypical instruments such as baritone guitar and theremin, he utilized them all. The band was short-lived — I split to jam with Ariel Pink, Raymond fled to Portland, then me subsequently to New York City — but in founding the ESP Institute years later, there was always a recurring mental note; "we must make Raymond’s pedal steel album." I had managed to wrangle his blessed performance on a remix for Project Club’s 'El Mar Y La Luna', but it took almost a decade until I once again wore the producer hat and we began working on 'The Lost Art Of Wandering', a title borrowed from Sam Shepard’s 'Stories'. Spiritually candid, expansive yet enveloping, this is the strung-out, visceral country music that simply radiates from Raymond. Each song is his set of coordinates in a vast open terrain, holding a sentimental familiarity, a truthful longing for the simple comforts that diffuse life’s complications, a place to get lost. —Lovefingers