‘No plan, no budget, no promotion’: how a genre-mashing masterpiece by a forgotten New York beatnik blew Gen Z away
How did an album that began life in 1984 – fusing disco, folk, synth-pop and Chinese opera – end up as ‘one of 2026’s most
How did an album that began life in 1984 – fusing disco, folk, synth-pop and Chinese opera – end up as ‘one of 2026’s most thrilling releases’? And why does its creator call himself Nirosta Steel? ‘It’s kind of mind-bending,” says 69-year old Steven Hall. For the last three years, the Scottish musician has been living with his lawyer husband a few hours south of Chicago, driving an Uber for some additional income.
Now, suddenly, he is being lauded by critics for his double LP My Skyscraper, released last month under the name Nirosta Steel. Compiling material recorded between 1984 and 2025, it charts a sonic landscape through disco, folk and synth-pop with detours into Chinese opera and ecclesiastical a cappella. Pitchfork called it “an archival triumph and one of the year’s most thrilling new releases”.
It all came about when a label head, impressed with Nirosta Steel’s 2014 album Cool Fire, asked Hall if he had any more music. “He didn’t know what he was in for,” says Hall. The couple of dozen unreleased songs he shared spanned four decades of eclectic musicianship, and revealed a globe-trotting life and career that intersects with experimental icons such as Arthur Russell and Allen Ginsberg.
Now My Skyscraper seems poised to admit Hall into that rarified pantheon of historically salvaged artists whose time has belatedly arrived. Continue reading...
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