Raymond Richards is a multi-instrumentalist. He once told me that “if I don’t have to blow or bow it, I can play it.” However, he came to Ban Ban Ton Ton’s attention via his proficiency on the pedal steel. Livermore-born, Idaho-raised, L.A. schooled, and now Portland, Oregon-based, Raymond, came up through shoegaze and slowcore, and honed his chops on this very particular instrument while sitting in, and touring, with acts such as Acetone, Hope Sandoval and Colm O’Ciosoig’s Warm Intentions, and the post-Slowdive band, Mojave 3. In 2020, Raymond and close friend, Andrew “Lovefingers” Hogge collaborated on an album, The Lost Art Of Wandering, which turned out to be one of that year’s ambient / chillout landmarks. Everyone, quite rightly, raved about this glissandi and vibrati hymn to the breathtaking beauty of America. Its musical celebration of the splendour of unspoiled scenery from the Cajun south to the Appalachian east.

Raymond’s new album, Sand Paintings, is less of an ambient affair. However, some of the reference points, such as David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti are still there. The tremolo twang on Monument Valley, for example, echoes Chris Isaak’s work on Lynch’s Wild At Heart. Its nocturnal rhythm a percussive ripple that recalls New Orleans’ Neville Brothers, lost somewhere along Robbie Robertson’s crazy river. Plus it couldn’t be “Alt.” Country without paying its respects to Gram Parsons. The opening, Badwater Basin, invokes The Flying Burrito Brothers on another, epic, cosmic come down. The influence of Brian Eno is also still present, but rather than his collaborations with Daniel Lanois, such as Apollo, its more his earlier solo LPs, Taking Tiger Mountain, Here Come The Warm Jets, and his tape loop experiments with Robert Fripp’s “infinite” guitar. Farrington Dome is a post-rock pastoral, where cowboy campfire picking meets Manuel Göttsching, under the pair’s Evening Star.

There’s less Mazzy Star melancholia, and more of the blasted, busted Americana of outfits such as Godspeed You Black Emperor and The Black Heart Procession. Mescal Shakes is an emotive, Ennio Morricone-esque gunslinger march. The juice harp jive of 2 Cent Mambo is the kind of eccentric exotica that you might find on the jukebox in Quentin Tarantino’s Titty Twister.

The album is nothing if not cinematic. Each track feels like a travelogue snapshot. A super 8 movie. A fistful of faded Polaroids. A collection of memories, momentos, of a wide open western landscape, glimpsed, stolen, through rented car windows, on a road trip where the only stops are for gas, and cheap motels. With no destination, except “the ends of the Earth”, “who knows where”. Moments like Saguaro, with its waltzing Columbian 12-string tiple, help to conjure an air of Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, and a dishevelled Harry Dean Stanton / Travis Henderson staggering out of the desert. As well as pedal steel, the record is peppered with muted Mariachi brass, helping, again, to mirror the more Mexican bits of Ry Cooder’s famous score.

Raymond Richards’ Sand Paintings is out now, on ESP Institute.