Listening to Pittsburgh artists on online streaming services like Spotify is great, but what’s even better is browsing through STACKS, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s exclusive digital music platform. Two times a year, the local streaming service adds a new round of Pittsburgh bands and artists to its collection, paying them a stipend of $200 (which equals about 23,000 streams on Spotify). Anyone can listen to music on STACKS, and owning a library card allows for free downloads.

Keeping with the theme of Pittsburghers supporting Pittsburgh, each week Pittsburgh City Paper will be reviewing one of the albums available on STACKS to further spread awareness of the amazing musical talent the city has to offer.

Stephen Sciulli called his solo debut, High in the Mountain, “country music from an imaginary country,” which is a killer line, but also weirdly accurate. The thing seems to be guided by an indistinct set of rules that are hard to articulate but easy to recognize. All of the ten songs rely heavily on Sciulli’s agile guitar work and slightly deranged pop songwriting, though sometimes that means svelte upbeat gems like “Head Cleaner” and sometimes it means cinematic eight-minute-plus tracks like the title track, which sounds a little like Ian Curtis singing over the theme that would sound at home on a Super Mario Nintendo game. It’s as fun as it sounds, without ever veering into precious-territory.

Sciulli — a Pittsburgh music journeyman, founding member of Carsickness and later of Ploughman’s Lunch and Life in Balance — imbues High in the Mountain with a variety of seemingly disparate influences, most notably the playful rhythms and nimble guitar work associated with West African pop music. Stateside speaking, his guitar playing shares a lot with multi-instrumentalist Delicate Steve; it’s surefooted but never too tidy, there’s joy in it but it’s not superfluous. The production nails this balance too, with smart mixes that consistently draw your ear to the right places without ever feeling overly polished. There are little flourishes of imprecision — slightly flat singing, detuned guitars, tipsy slide work — that keep the album gratifying no matter how much you listen.

“Head Cleaner,” for instance, has kept its place on a playlist of mine since 2017, and it’s the mix of imperfection and pop know-how that keeps it there. It lasts only 142 seconds, but it’s remarkable what Sciulli pulls off in that time. I’m always in awe of a slim two-minute instrumental, but it’s all the more captivating and revealing given that the album has four tracks over seven minutes (and one under 30 seconds). It shows that the songwriting is self-assured, that the short ones say all they need to say with their allotted time, and the long ones deserve the time to stretch out.

There’s no shortage of thrilling little moments on High in the Mountain, but for a succinct shot of the album’s oddity and charm, start with “Head Cleaner,” then start again from the beginning. It’s hard to turn off.

Listen to High in the Mountain on STACKS.