"Open and empty." That’s how Darden Smith describes the west Texas landscape that inspired his wildly creative new multi-media project, Western Skies. Comprising a new studio record, a book of photography, lyrics, and essays, and an accompanying album of readings set to music, the collection is an immersive journey through a world both real and imagined, a place of mystery and mythology, possibility and longing. Like his photographs, Smith’s writing is steeped in isolation, though rarely lonely; timeless, yet acutely aware of the hours and minutes whizzing by like mileposts on the highway.

"A deft blend of melancholy (reminiscent of Jackson Browne’s early work) and the no-nonsense virtue of vintage JJ Cale. A most effective combination."
- Rodney Crowell

1 MILES BETWEEN
2 RUNNING OUT OF TIME
3 WESTERN SKIES
4 I CAN’T EXPLAIN
5 NOT TOMORROW YET
6 TURN THE OTHER CHEEK
7 PERFECT FOR A LITTLE WHILE
8 THE HIGH ROAD
9 LOS ANGELES
10 I DON’T WANT TO DREAM ANYMORE
11 HUMMINGBIRD

Produced by Michael Ramos, Stewart Lerman and Darden Smith