Artist.......: Bill Callahan
Album........: Woke on a Whaleheart
Label........: Drag City
Genre........: Indie
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Feb-25-2007
str.date.....: Apr-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: http://www.pry.com/smog
track title time
01. From The Rivers To The Oceans 06:36
02. Footprints 02:48
03. Diamond Dancer 04:00
04. Sycamore 05:36
05. The Wheel 04:04
06. Honeymoon Child 04:40
07. Day 04:33
08. Night 03:04
09. A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man, To Be A Man 05:13
Runtime 40:34 min
Size 50,9 MB
Release Notes:
Woke on a Whaleheart is the first record to be
released by Bill Callahan under his own name
instead of his former nom de plume, Smog. His
relationship with Drag City, however, remains
intact and they will release the album on April
17th, 2007. A single, "Diamond Dancer" will precede
the album released as it is on March 20th, 2007.
The arrangements of labelmate and former-Royal Trux
vocalist and guitarist Neil Hagerty will feature on
the album and Callahan's band will consist of
vocalist Deani Pugh-Flemmings, guitarist Pete
Denton and violinist Elizabeth Warren. The album's
sound is rumoured to touch upon "gospel, tough pop
and American Light
Bill Callahan (born approximately 1968 or 1969),
also known as Smog and (Smog), is an American
singer-songwriter born in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre of
underground rock, with home-made tape-albums
recorded on four track tape recorders. Later he
began releasing albums with the label Drag City.
Callahan started out as a highly experimental
artist, using substandard instruments and recording
equipment. His early songs often nearly lacked
melodic structure and were clumsily played on
poorly tuned guitars (possibly influenced by
Jandek, whom Callahan admires), resulting in the
dissonant sounds on his self-released cassettes and
debut album Sewn to the Sky. Much of his early
output was instrumental, a stark contrast to the
lyrical focus of his later work. He used lo-fi
techniques not because of an aesthetic preference
but because he didn't have any other possiblitiy to
make music. Once he signed a contract with Drag
City, he also started to use recording studios and
a greater variety of instruments for his records.
And so from 1993 to 2000, Callahan's recordings
grew more and more "professional" sounding, with
more instruments and a generally higher sound
quality. In this period he recorded two albums with
the influential producer Jim O'Rourke and
Tortoise's John McEntire, and collaborated with
Neil Hagerty. After 2000's Dongs of Sevotion, Smog
began moving back to a slightly simpler
instrumentation and recording style, as on the
albums Rain on Lens, Supper, and A River Ain't Too
Much to Love.
Smog's songs are often based on simple, repetitive
structures, consisting of a simple chord
progression repeated for the duration of the entire
song. His singing is strikingly characterized by
his baritone voice and a style of delivery free of
over emoting. Melodically and lyrically he tends to
eschew the verse-chorus approach favoured by many
contemporary song writers, preferring instead a
more free form approach relying less on melodic and
lyrical repetition. Themes in Callahan's lyrics
include relationships, moving, horses, teenagers,
bodies of water, and more recently, politics.
Smog's generally dispassionate delivery of lyrics
and dark irony often obfuscate complex emotional
and lyrical twists and turns. Critics have
generally characterized his music as depressing and
intensely introverted, with one critic describing
it as "a peep-show view into an insular world of
alienation." [1] Despite this there is also a broad
swathe of joy throughout Callahan's work and more
attentive critics have picked up on Callahan's
tendency to black humour, a tendency often confused
with a depressed mental state or a genuine
obsession with the morbid, a confusion no doubt
caused by his deadpan vocals.
Smog's Cold Blooded Old Times appears on the High
Fidelity soundtrack.
As of 2007 he lives in Austin, TX where he is
recording the follow-up to A River Ain't Too Much
to Love, currently titled Woke on a Whaleheart
scheduled to be released in April 2007.[1] It will
be his first record release as Bill Callahan. In
2006, he also began touring under his full name.[2]