Chuck Johnson

Chuck Johnson is not a fan of the terms Ambient Americana or Cosmic Americana, either for the ways they reduce sound to word clouds or their old genre associations; still, his magisterial and imaginative records helped create the path for those recombinant notions to exist at all. His 2017 album, Balsams, represented not only the fourth or fifth act of a career that stretched back a quarter-century—it also opened avenues for the pedal steel guitar, who can make meditative music, and how they can do it. “Riga Black” glowed like a sun reaching the horizon and settling there, refusing to set as it admired its own light; “Labradorite Eye” conjured parallel images of the sea and desert, their unknowable vastness producing visions of possibility and wonder. As others have taken up that quest, Johnson has refined and expanded his approach, leading to 2024’s audacious and guest-rich Sun Glories.

Johnson’s career began in the indie rock trenches, as the major-label feeding frenzy took hold of local scenes. But he was a restless sort, moving between raga-like rock improvisation and hard-edged solo guitar, harsh noise and arcing modern composition. During his time studying electronic music at California’s Mills College, he often passed his nights with an acoustic guitar, leading to a series of ruminative solo records that slowly funneled into the more expansive Balsams, Sulfur Studies, and The Cinder Grove. An accomplished mastering engineer, committed political activist, and eager environmental student, Johnson brought both past and present to bear on Sun Glories, where the momentum of his rock history undergirded the scale and texture of his later work. Moving between moments of worry and release, Sun Glories was neither ambient nor cosmic—instead, it was soft music for the hard times of here and now.