The Silver Spring Penguin

At The Penguin newsroom, we’re all about mellow — lazy days spent staring out the window, listening to the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on glass. Yep, that beats panicked hustling and stress-induced weeping any day of the week.

And if mellow had a soundtrack, it would probably sound something like “Scattered Hearts”, the new CD from acoustic guitarist Patrick Smith. Its overall tone is meditative and sometimes melancholy. But the sound is pliable enough to let the listener insert his or her own narrative, to soak up that groove and let it complete the mood.

It took plenty of practice to get the Takoma Park musician to this point: electric-guitar lessons during his Baltimore childhood, then classical instruction, and then some self-instruction on top of that, he told The Penguin. All that spawned what Smith called “finger-style, instrumental guitar music that does not easily fit into a category.”

Each piece on “Scattered Hearts” started as improv, Smith said. “Sometimes this was purely musical, sometimes in response to a situation or emotion in my life,” he explained in an email. However, the album’s mood has broad range, stretching from that rainy-day melancholy in “August Born” and “Embracing the Shadow”, to lovey-dovey romance in “Here We Are”.

In “Dandelion Wish” (above), one can actually feel the warm spring sun, smell that fresh-cut grass, and feel the cherry blossom petals brush against one’s face in a gentle breeze. Yeah, that’s mellow! But in “Livin’ the Dream”, the mood goes gray, and a rising November storm sweeps dry, dead leaves across the cold earth. Still mellow, just a different shade of it.

Catch a whiff of Smith’s music from his CDBaby page, then hit the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (8230 Georgia Ave) on Saturday for the CD release party. The free fun starts at 7:00 p.m.

Photo and music sample courtesy of Patrick Smith.