hris Smith has long been one of Australian experimental music's best kept secrets. Starting out in avant rock outfit Golden Lifestyle Band, Smith went solo quite early on in his career, a move that could so easily have resulted in a half-baked isolationism, but instead simply gave voice to his uncommon musical maturity and singular vision. Smith's varied drone aesthetic was, and still is, nurtured by frequent collaborations with some of the Tasman's finest musical weirdos, citing recent tours and releases with Peter and Graeme Jeffries (This Kind of Punishment, Cakekitchen) and Bruce Russell (Dead C). To many, the prospect of watching or listening to a guy sit on a chair with a guitar and various effects pedals making ethereal feedback drones would be akin to shaving their heads with industrial tools. Smith's talent lays in making such a sound accessible and volatile, giving the audience the impression that utter collapse or coalescence into a recognisable song structure are equally as likely. I took a number of said people to see Chris play, and I was not surprised to find they were soon as disarmed and entranced as I was, and found themselves often unable to remember the names of girlfriends and the location of cars afterwards.


Map Ends 1995-2001 contains new material alongside some highlights from the last 6 years of Smith's solo work, comprising songs from Cabin Fever and Replacement, his two Australian releases. Quite simply, it is an excellent ambient record. With 8 tracks clocking in at just over an hour, it finds Smith experimenting with a wide variety of dronescapes, with reference points ranging from early Flying Saucer Attack to recent Windy and Carl and beyond. It is entirely commendable that within over an hour of drones that Smith never idles, finding sounds ranging from the lush, blissed out and shimmering to noisier freak outs with quaking bass pulses and faint clicks that serve as rhythmic devices underneath the layered ambient washes.


The record begins with "Live River," a minute long live introduction consisting largely of the noises of a bar fading into the start of Chris' set. A deep hiss builds over a revolving guitar figure before fading into "Fake Hand" just as it begins to gain momentum. "Fake Hand" is centered on warm washes of ambient drone and recalls the recent work of the Stars of the Lid in making the prepared guitar noises seem far removed from their original source. Halfway through the track gorgeous rushes of delayed guitar recalling layered strings rise and fall in an endearing, non-linear melody characteristic of Smith's work.


"Replacement", the title track from Smith's 2000 sophomore effort, is a stunning example of his craft. Like fellow avant drone architect Mathew Bower (Sunroof!) Smith rarely fades in to the tracks, letting the drones abruptly start and finish. The resulting effect is as if the hums and vibrating, earthy tones always existed and are represented here as a mere sample. With a distant kit holding down something like a sedated motorik beat, layers of distorted drones seethe beneath a searing, heavily reverbed lead. With the almost inaudible drums barely maintaining a recognisable rhythm, loops, clicks and disembodied sounds build inside the mass as the lead moves in and out of the drone, always threatening to sink right into the fuzz. Frequently, and with perfect timing over the 12 minutes of the track, the trance induced by the lower end hum is given definite emotional impact by the echoing strains of Smith's lead rising out of it. "Replacement" is also a good indicator of the space Smith inhabits in the "contemporary drone movement" between the bruising, more shapeless constructs of Sunroof! and the pristine, lilting sounds of Kranky artists Windy and Carl and Stars of the Lid. The album itself marked Smith's movement away from the more coherent, occasionally conventional song structures showcased on 1998's noisy triumph Cabin Fever and into a more singular focus on sustained, reverberating tones and buried, fragmented melodies.


"The Problem with Trouble" one of the stranger tracks from Cabin Fever, eschews the guitar effects almost entirely in favour of a disconcerting, delayed sample of the Australian Time Information Service. Over the stuttering "At the third stroke, it will be..." spare piano chords ring out underneath unrestrained, melancholic melodica blasts and almost random percussive hits, lending the track an intriguing, spastic tone. As the voice continues throughout the track in manufactured earnest the piano finds a more defined, striking melody and is joined by chimes and more insistent beats, building to a peak just before it ends.


Smith's simple, melodic way with the ivory resurfaces again on "Nothing Can Stop Us," this time under a moaning fog of scratchy, wailing guitars and intermittent bursts of bass. Towards the end of piece, the melodica enters with a charming, skewed melody as all the elements of the track merge and just as quickly dissipate, leaving only the lonely multi tracked melodica melody and some rapid nonsensical voices behind it. An uncharacteristic fade in begins the last track "Captain, This is It," another Replacement gem, and the undeniable epic of the album. An intense, dissonant piece, it rides on a thick, murky industrial drone framed by hovering feedback and an insistent screeching that plays off the constant distorted low-end hum over its eighteen minute length. Bizarre noises, scrapings and squalls of feedback rise in and out of the trance-inducing mix, and as it fades out the listener is let down gently and left to reflect on the immensity of this record.


Whilst this will appeal mostly to established lovers of the white noise drone and experimental ambient rock, the sometimes lush, at times dissonant but always engaging intensity of Map Ends should find fans in odd places. A great triumph running through the pieces collected here is Smith's skill in masking the source of the noises, from guitars to pianos to field recordings, to the point where the listener is given up to what they hear, and not so much the personality behind it. Whilst the tone is dark for much of the record, there is too much beauty and too many transcendental moments throughout for it to be yet another ode to melancholic resignation. Contemporary navel gazers would do well to make a note of this work; Smith effortlessly creates and molds moods without forcing his intentions on the listener, creating a timeless soundscape for any season.