An inventive guitarist who not only explores unusual tunings à la Davy Graham, but often plays his acoustic instrument in entirely unconventional ways (detuning strings in the middle of a chord, laying it upright in his lap and hammering on the strings like a dulcimer, etc.), Smith occasionally sounds like an otherworldly cross between Tim Buckley (whose "Song to the Siren" is a standard part of Smith's set) and the East Texas avant primitive Jandek, although his occasional full-band performances approach the chamber folk delicacy of Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left. Smith debuted with the self-released live set Live at the Roundhouse, available on both CD and DVD, before the release of his first studio album, The Fox and the Monk, in 2006.