Stephen Schmitt, guitarist for Seattle avant-rock titans Diminished Men, releases Modern Explorations In Pagan Rock, the strangest imaginary soundtrack to an unimaginable film. Stephen Schmitt has been one of Seattle's most distinctive guitarists and composers over the last 20 years. His sinuous, left-handed riffs and strange melodies have helped to define the long-running trio Diminished Men, who've reigned among the Pacific Northwest's most adventurous rock groups since 2004. Now Schmitt presents his first proper solo album, Modern Explorations In Pagan Rock, a kaleidoscopic soundtrack to an imaginary film that expands upon the subterranean eclecticism of his main band.

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Schmitt comes from an artistic family whose members attended Black Mountain College, a hotbed of innovative creativity. His itinerant father Rupert ran a poetry journal called Scribble in the early '50s and hung out with members of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and beatnik poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Schmitt’s aunt danced with Merce Cunningham; and uncle served as John Cage's teaching assistant; they attended classes taught by Buckminster Fuller & Bauhaus student color theorist Joseph Albers. In Schmitt's clan, a subtle pressure to become an artist asserted itself, and he gravitated to animated movies, photography, and the mysteries of the guitar. 

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In the late '90s, Schmitt got hip to Ennio Morricone and other Italian film composers such as Piero Piccioni and Pierro Umiliani, as well as exotica and lounge music. In the early 2000s, Schmitt met drummer Dave Abramson and they formed Diminished Men. After Diminished Men signed to Alan Bishop’s Abduction Records, Schmitt became exposed to Bishop and Hisham Mayet’s Sublime Frequencies label, which turbocharged his growing interest in harmonic minor scales and non-Western interpretations of Western music. Assimilating these influences—along with a deep dive into Turkish psychedelia abetted by Abramson—Schmitt found many ingenious ways to incorporate reverb and darkly beautiful melodies into his guitar playing and compositions. His music is proof that when talented players channel foreign music, unexpectedly interesting sounds ensue.

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Schmitt has applied all of these elements and more to Modern Explorations In Pagan Rock. Using Moog and Prophet synths, bass, percussion, and toy drums, in addition to guitar, he has sculpted a tenebrous, suspenseful score to a movie that's far too esoteric and eldritch to be playing in a theater near you. Even when channeling the flamboyant funkiness of blaxploitation-flick soundtracks, Schmitt and his talented cohorts maintain a layer of strange intrigue. He loves this genre because “it expresses something totally different from my experience. It's authentic in its expression of the plight of the musicians. It has fantastic orchestration and use of voices and multiple vocal harmonies and loads of studio and spring reverb. It makes you move when you hear it.”

 

Recording for Modern Explorations began slightly before the pandemic, with Schmitt doing all of the instrumentation at his home studio. Solo sessions involving classical guitar and a Moog synthesizer evolved into pieces that hinted at a phantasmagorical soundtrack formed from memories of horror films watched in his youth. Schmitt then booked multiple days with some of Seattle’s musicians, starting with drummer Dave Abramson, who’s also played with Secret Chiefs 3, Master Musicians Of Bukkake, and Eyvind Kang. They fleshed out the sketches of these songs with saxophone by Skerik (Roger Waters, Les Claypool) and Neil Welch (Wally Shoup, Bad Luck, Chris Icasiano), violin and viola by Alex Guy (Angel Olsen), piano by Paul Moore (Tucker Martine, Tim Young), cello and bass by Keith Lowe (Harold Budd, Bill Frisell), and Sun City Girls legend Alan Bishop, who spits hilariously absurd freestyle verses about Hollywood’s dark underbelly and dietary habits on the spectral and sprightly bop song “Dieta Delle Streghe: Darkness In The Valley” (recorded at Studio Kubbara in Egypt). 

 

More out-jazz moves animate “Toy Ominous,” featuring Ornette-like sax skronk by Skerik, augmenting the song's menacing drones and horror-film atmospheres. “Atlantic Casualty” is a majestic orchestral composition bolstered by Guy's violin and viola, with stealthy jazz undertones. “Impromptu Argento” comes off like a baroque giallo soundtrack, its eeriness and turbulence curdling blood in the vein of the best Goblin material. On “Charlie Don't Surf,” Schmitt's irradiated Prophet 08 and Moog Matriarch drones offer timbral chiaroscuro to an invigorating dirge. “Black Forest” is a pensive march through a dark, arboreal realm, with Schmitt's guitar emitting glistening beauty. With Dave Abramson on drums and Keith Lowe on bass, “Lord Of Misrule” ends the album on an enigmatic, ambiguous note, as Schmitt's prickly guitar and astringent toy violin contrast with abyssal synth drones.