Album Notes

Mr. Smolin is the performance moniker of Los Angeles songwriter Barry Smolin, aka Shmo. Best known as the longtime host of the psychedelic radio show The Music Never Stops on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California, Smolin has been writing songs for 25 years in a variety of genres, finally settling on a piano-based offbeat pop sound that reflects influences ranging from Stephen Foster and Hoagy Carmichael to poet-artists like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen to singer-songwriters like Cat Stevens and Harry Nilsson and Elton John and David Bowie and Randy Newman and Tom Waits to pop eccentrics like Gilbert O'Sullivan and David Werner as well as theatre composers like Jerome Kern and Stephen Sondheim, among many others. Smolin's aesthetic, though, retains its own forward-thinking originality, with one foot in the avant-garde and one in Tin Pan Alley, stressing strong, memorable melodies and challenging, poetic lyrics. Smolin aspires to create artful music that is equally at home in nightclubs, on legitimate theatre stages, and wafting through the dankest bohemian loft-spaces. Village Voice music critic Richard Gehr has dubbed Smolin's style "psychedelic cabaret music."

The debut album by Mr. Smolin is entitled "At Apogee" and features vocal and musical contributions by producer Stew (creative genius behind the seminal L.A. pop band The Negro Problem) as well as performances by Stew's Negro Problem cohorts Heidi Rodewald and Josh Baldwin, singer/guitarist Harvey Canter of the psychedelic rock band Ruby Flux, the brilliant surf-noir outfit Double Naught Spy Car (Paul Lacques, Marc Doten, Marcus Watkins, and Joe Berardi), horn virtuoso Probyn Gregory (of Brian Wilson's band and The Wondermints), and television writer Seth Kurland (Mad About You, Friends, 8 Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter).