Chas Smith's Twilight of the Dreamboats, one of his quintessential electro-acoustic work, is an ever-evolving single gesture, a seamless blend of tones and timbres from his metal sound sculptures (instruments with such names as Bertoia 718, Que Lastas, lockheed, Mantis, Sceptre, DADO) and his homemade and hot-rodded steel guitars (Clinesmith, Emmons, Guitarzilla, Cadillac bass), performed by the composer.

“Reaffirming its status as one of the most exciting innovations in the recording and marketing of modern composition since the introduction of magnetic tape, Cold Blue Music‘s series of “singles”—a new, minimalist or post-minimalist work rarely longer than twenty minutes, premiered on its own disc in the label’s usual beautiful packaging—issues three new gems…. Chas Smith‘s Twilight of the Dreamboats is alchemical ambient, turning a ton of metal sculptures and homemade steel guitars into a single, drifting, golden feather. Thirteen minutes that go on forever and ever.”—Stephen Fruitman, Igloo Magazine

“Harp notes trickling and tumbling like eddies in a stream; pianistic shell bursts interspersed with wounded reflection; chromium dreamscapes seeping out from resonant metal sculptures and steel guitars. In terms of style and content there’s little overlap in the music on these three new releases from the Californian label Cold Blue. Yet each emerges from a recognizable and distinctly American compositional outlook, sensual and approachable while also robustly individualistic and aesthetically self-determining…. Chas Smith crafts his own Twilight Of The Dreamboats, an oneiric montage of metallic tones and floating haloes, sonically chilly and alien yet with a strange otherworldly allure reminiscent of paintings by surrealist Yves Tanguy. Each of these three pieces lasts a little over 20 minutes and is issued by Cold Blue in the form of a CD single. Each lodges in the memory as sensation, rather than as realized idea or abstractable form, and the concise format suits that aspect of the music perfectly.” —Julien Cowley, The Wire magazine