Nirosta Steel’s My Skyscraper, issued in June 2026 as a double LP, compiles material recorded between 1984 and 2025 and has received widespread critical attention. The release mixes disco, folk, synth-pop and passages of Chinese opera and ecclesiastical a cappella. Reviewers have highlighted the album’s breadth; Pitchfork described the record as “an archival triumph and one of the year’s most thrilling new releases.”
Steven Hall, the artist behind the Nirosta Steel name, is a 69-year-old Scottish-born musician now living with his husband a few hours south of Chicago. Hall has worked intermittently in music for decades and supported himself in recent years by driving for a ride-hailing service while living in the United States. The material on My Skyscraper assembles songs and experiments from across his career, bringing previously unreleased work into a single project.
The album reached the label that issued it after a music executive encountered Hall’s 2014 record Cool Fire and requested any additional material. Hall supplied a collection of recordings that span four decades and a range of styles. Biographical details in package notes and interviews link Hall’s career to figures from New York’s experimental scenes, and the release references intersections with artists such as Arthur Russell and the poet Allen Ginsberg.
Commentary around My Skyscraper has focused on both its eclectic sound palette and the circumstances of its emergence: a long archival accumulation made available through a contemporary label release. The album has attracted attention from critics and listeners across age groups, including younger audiences who have engaged with its genre-mixing approach. Publications and critics are situating the record within a recent pattern of rediscovered or reissued work that prompts reassessment of practitioners whose profiles were limited during their most active years.
