Nash Smith & Ganges

One time-tested guide to appreciating Nash Smith & Ganges is as follows: sit down or stand as if you’re a lamppost. Imagine yourself at an airport, going up an escalator, then realizing that you’re the only person in the terminal. Planes continue to leave and take off. Then there’s some unexpected feeling, then there’s nothing but sound.

In order to get a more palatable sense of what the band sounds like, combine one part honey with three parts whiskey. Add a borderline Vaudevillian temptress (Melissa Smith), a backwoods noise junkie (Rob Kenagy), a musical bibliofreak (Mark Arciaga), and a dash of lemon. What you’ll get is an atmospheric, electric beverage, one that sways like Phil Spector and staggers like Neil Young.

The combination of birdsongs and smoky exhalations makes Nash Smith & Ganges a band that tastes unpredictable, beautifully jarring, airily rooted in soil. Imagine an empty lot, the highest level of a parking garage, a field in Iowa. It’s dusk and the sky looks like an acid trip. You are holding a drink. You are holding a boomerang. You think of snowflakes, scarecrows and the smell of lipstick on a used-up glass of gin. Then there’s a letter in your hand, then there’s the sound of undoing the envelope.