Smog

Genres:	Folk • Pop / Rock
Descriptive "tags":	soul • hip-hop • female vocalists • rnb • hip hop • neo-soul
Decades Active:	1980s • 1990s • 2000s

Biography

The creation of Bill Callahan (Silver Springs, Maryland, USA) and an ever-changing cast of musicians, Smog are important pioneers of the lo-fi revival in American independent music during the early 90s, influencing acts as diverse as Pavement and Will Oldham’s Palace. Callahan’s albums are characterized by their sparse, often discordant instrumentation, and his self-absorbed and intimately revealing lyrics.

Basing himself in Georgia, Callahan’s early cassette-only releases were self-produced, largely instrumental soundscapes, with just Callahan and his guitar alone in the studio. Moving to California and Drag City Records, in 1992 Callahan released the more song-orientated Forgotten Foundation, which was quickly followed by the excellent Julius Caesar, an album whose tone was set by the gloom-laden ‘Your Wedding’. The Burning Kingdom mini-album featured Callahan’s fullest production to date, although the lyrical...

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