Bill Callahan’s newest album, Apocalypse, has come out.
Finally given it the time and, I must say, it is ravishing. The first song, “Drover,” is one of his finest & most piercing:
Bill Callahan – “Drover”
Apocalypse is much more stripped and ragged than Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, which seems necessary. To go bigger, more into the strings and orchestration, would have been too much. The purely stripped had been perfected in A River Ain’t Too Much to Love (his last album under the Smog moniker). There needed to be some pick-scrapes and distortion. And flute.
“America!” is a track that has been tricky for me. Earnestness in someone so usually coy and reserved…thoughts still swarming.
Album – all-together – wonderful. It’s great to see that his lyrics & ability hasn’t failed. When one is such a brilliant lyricist, there usually comes a point when they depart greatly (Aaron Weiss) or dribble miserably (Leonard Cohen). Bill Callahan continues surely & strongly.
The New York Times had a great interview with Bill. He’s difficult in an interview, so it’s great when you find one worthwhile. Bought tickets to see him in Boston in July. He did a reading for Letters to Emma Bowlcut a couple months back at a bookshop in Brooklyn. Weird interaction. That book, by the way, is worth checking out. It takes away the need of a dozen others. And that it is to belittle it.
Anyways.
I hope you are well. I just thought I should give you a heads-up.
It has been a while. Bill Callahan’s newest album, Apocalypse, is due out soon. You can find it for download if you’re impatient. It will be worth your impatience. One of the few endorsements of impatience you’ll hear me give.
Gearing up for another move, back to southern Maine for a couple-month stint. Re-orient. Build. Gather & build.
Swirls since last time: Mary Robison, Philip K Dick, Letters to Emma Bowlcut, Pulp, illness, Diane Arbus, Glen Ligon, the Fear, leaning into comfort, Lee Hazlewood,
Lasciate mi morire!
E che volete voiche mi conforte
In cosi dura sorte,
In cosi gran martire? (“Lamento D’Arianna”)
“anxiety, unresolved conflict, partial prophecy, sexual tension, secrets, threat of violence, threat of…[build anticipation]” (from Lewis Robinson’s notes on short stories), the plays theplaystheplays, Vic Chesnutt, constant, drink&drunk®ret, the Stopping, reaping, Say Valley Maker!, the shivering, rationalization, the Only Thing I Don’t Have To Rationalize, the exhale.
And so it comes again, as it could not before.
Smog – Hit the Ground Running
