You can also purchase the album here:

www.theslowmusicmovement.bandcamp.com/album/high-lonesome

"...[High & Lonesome's] pedal steel guitar links back to Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois 1983 album Apollo – Atmospheres and Soundtracks. A hard one to match, but The Howard Hughes Suite lives up to the task..." - Peter van Cooten's Ambienblog

www.ambientblog.net/blog/2022-02/howardhughessuite-fawnwodacianileisz/

"Famed pedal steel player Daniel Lanois once said of his production technique, ‘Let’s concentrate on what is glaringly special and make something out of it’. The Howard Hughes Suite accomplishes this feat with High & Lonesome." - A Closer Listen

www.acloserlisten.com/2022/05/25/the-howard-hughes-suite-high-lonesome/

"A remarkable ambient music collection, and not just for pedal steel guitar fans." ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - All About Jazz

www.allaboutjazz.com/high-and-lonesome-the-howard-hughes-suite-self-produced

"...this collection springs from the American Southwest. The pleasure in the disc lies not just in the way that the artist turns that topography into textured music (a nice addition to a burgeoning genre), but also in his ability to expand the tone of his guitar..." - Justin Cober-Lake - Dusted Magazine

https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/676552607446269952/dust-volume-8-number-2

"...like a lullaby in the darkness..." - A Closer Listen

www.acloserlisten.com/2022/01/03/2022-winter-music-preview-ambient-and-drone/

Liner notes:

The Age of Virus.

In a time of face masks and plexiglass; lockdowns and furloughs, I have no doubt that I was not alone in becoming even more stressed and anxious than usual.

Though insomnia was stealing my nights, I was able to channel this exhaustion into something positive, and the results from this intense episode are here on ‘High and Lonesome’.

Composed, recorded, and mixed in June 2020; the whole process became a cathartic and calming experience, and I hope this will be true for listeners of the album too. Perhaps the very absence of sleep is the invisible, guiding hand that authored and informed these sonic dreamscapes and their ethereal narratives; an aural aid in the art of losing yourself, surrendering and letting go.

Everything you hear on this album was created by using pedal steel guitar as the sole/soul sound source; at times unrecognisable, but always affecting.

The album's title refers, in part, to the 'high lonesome sound' - "...An expressively emotional, powerful and earthy style of musical expression associated mainly with bluegrass, old-time and country music, characterised by unmetered music ...".

To my ears, though, the 'high lonesome sound' is best conjured by the keening cry of the pedal steel; an aching, melancholic weeping, yet paradoxically remains uplifting.

credits released February 18, 2022

All music © The Howard Hughes Suite

Album artwork © The Howard Hughes Suite

Mastering: Ian Hawgood (www.homenormal.com)

all rights reserved

Whenever I read, work on editing photos, write emails, I often listen to commercially released albums that have been time stretched to extreme lengths. Some great examples are albums by artists like Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, etc, and the time stretched audio has an otherworldly vibe, which I find to be perfect background accompaniment for tasks where I'm not actively creating music of my own.

As an experiment, I thought it would be an interesting avenue to follow with some of my own music, and I felt that High & Lonesome would be an ideal candidate for this sonic process.

So here is High & Slowed Some - an aural odyssey of over five hours of calm-inducing music. credits released February 2, 2024

All music © The Howard Hughes Suite

Album artwork © The Howard Hughes Suite

You can also purchase the album here:

https://theslowmusicmovement.bandcamp.com/album/smoke-from-a-future-fire

"The music of our dreams…". - Max Reinhardt. BBC Radio 3.

"Ennio Morricone from Mars!" - Last Day Deaf.

http://lastdaydeaf.com/beyond-boundaries-fifty-four/

"… a haunting, stark soundtrack…it’s easy to imagine the band’s namesake moving like a ghost through empty halls, Smoke from a Future Fire echoing around him." - Petal Motel.

https://petalmotel.com/bandcamp-friday-september-shopping-list/

"With no particular place to go, lonesome space cowboy The Howard Hughes Suite, his faithful horse Jess & unholstered guitar amble beyond the acoustic flatlands, through cinematic ravines & across electronic streams just to see what's out there." - The Slow Music Movement.

https://www.theslowmusicmovement.org/blog/the-howard-hughes-suite-smoke-from-a-future-fire-bandcamp-self-release

"A haunting and beautiful album… captures the essence of old Western Americana but with delicate layers of dense ambience." - Joel Cuthbert - 'The Stillness and the Dancing' on CFRU 93.3 FM Guelph.

"Slow music for (mostly) guitar – a happy marriage of folk and ambient sensibilities." - The Moderns.

https://themoderns.blog/2020/04/12/osmr-the-howard-hughes-suite-smoke-from-a-future-fire/

"If you could imagine the movie The Hired Hand taking place on an asteroid hurtling through the edge of the solar system, then it might sound something like this…Filled with rural dust and melancholic celestial vibes, Smoke from a Future Fire is a must have album for fans of SUSS, North Americans and Ezra Feinberg." - Record Crates United.

https://recordcratesunited.com/2021/05/13/the-howard-hughes-suite-smoke-from-a-future-fire/

"The Howard Hughes Suite manage to thrill with ethereal and magical music played flawlessly…Refined melodies that take into account every little nuance…Fantastic and absolutely recommended." - Edgar Allan Poets

https://www.edgarallanpoets.com/the-howard-hughes-suite/

"Une guitare, une batterie et des balais frottés comme sous le sable du désert américain, des accords étirés comme des busards slide le long des lignes électriques d'une route traversant l'immensité. Tout est fait par un certain Kaz, chapeau bas!" - Blisstenings.

https://www.blisstenings.site/post/la-s%C3%A9lection-de-la-semaine-13

'Demos, Sketches, Works-in-Progress Vol. I', which as the title suggests, are all tracks in various states of progress, from initial recordings of ideas, experimental tracks, through to almost finished mixes.

More volumes of demos will appear in the not-too-distant future.

N.B.

Even though these tracks are demos, and not the finished, fully-realised mixes, they have all been mastered to release-ready quality.

Released July 28, 2022

All music © The Howard Hughes Suite

Album artwork © The Howard Hughes Suite

"…The Howard Hughes Suite and Geir Sundstøl’s Afterglow bends shimmery pedal steel into almost Balearic soundscapes…" - Jude Rogers. The Guardian. Folk album of the month (May 2021). ★★★★

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/14/future-folk-friendly-faces-different-spaces-review

"Portuguese label The Slow Music Movement rounded up 13 songs by artists (some already Petal Motel faves, some soon to be Petal Motel faves) to make songs that explore their respective folk roots but simultaneously look ahead and incorporate fresh, musical innovations to carve out the Future of Folk. Longtime Petal Motel favorite The Howard Hughes Suite teamed up with Geir Sundstøl to create this illuminated first single from the compilation. tHHS’s thoughtful guitalele picking pairs seamlessly with Sundstøl’s expansive, atmospheric pedal steel playing to ensure listeners that folk indeed has a bright and promising future." Petal Motel. https://petalmotel.com/afterglow/

Stream/buy the full album here: https://theslowmusicmovement.bandcamp.com/album/future-folk-friendly-faces-different-spaces

Geir Sundstøl: Pedal Steel, Mini Moog, ambient textures and atmospheres.

The Howard Hughes Suite: Guitalele, ambient textures and atmospheres.

Produced by The Howard Hughes Suite & Geir Sundstøl.

Mixed by G. Sundstøl at Studio Intim, Oslo, Norway.

Composed by R. Caswell and G. Sundstøl.

Geir Sundstøl's discography: https://sundstoel.bandcamp.com

Masterered by Ian Hawgood (www.homenormal.com)

Artwork by Harriet Clare (www.harrietclare.com)

Daniel Lanois calls his pedal steel his 'church in a suitcase', which is a poetic and apt description for such a beautifully, versatile instrument, with its own sacred and spiritual sound.

After yet another sleepless night, I got up before 3am, before even the dawn's life-affirming birdsong started, and created these two long-form tracks, as a means to help lessen the exponential, existential angst. Both were made with my Sho-Bud Maverick pedal steel as the sole/soul instrument, which I've processed and manipulated into ethereal soundscapes; 'steel hymns', if you will.

I hope you'll find these to be a sonic-balm.

Released July 27, 2020

All music © The Howard Hughes Suite

Album artwork © The Howard Hughes Suite