ARTiST: Bill Callahan
ALBUM: Apocalypse
BiTRATE: 150kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: Drag City
GENRE: Indie
SiZE: 45.14 megs
PLAYTiME: 0h 40min 24sec total
RiP DATE: 2011-04-09
STORE DATE: 2011-04-08
Track List:
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01. Drover 5:24
02. Baby's Breath 5:30
03. America! 5:33
04. Universal Applicant 5:53
05. Running For The Feeling 6:05
06. Free's 3:13
07. One Fine Morning 8:46
Release Notes:
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On FreeÆs, the oddly titled penultimate song on Bill CallahanÆs Apocalypse, the
singer ponders what it means to "to be free in bad timesà and good". Ultimately
(despite some misgivings) he seems to embrace his own freedom, or at least
recognise it. Because while this record draws from a sparser palette than 2009Æs
sun-cracked opus Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle û and even though itÆs called
Apocalypse, and is the latest from a singer renowned for his subversive outlook
û it isnÆt a bleak or downcast affair. Instead it plays out like a grand old
Western, wherein Callahan contemplates his role and heritage against an
untrammelled American landscape of the kind that constitutes its rich cover art.
That artwork is a painting by the artist Paul Ryan, though the apocalypse evoked
over the course of these seven songs is for the most part CallahanÆs own:
sitting in a hotel room listening to old recordings heÆs made, a flickering
television on mute, revelation (not Revelation) colouring his thoughts. This
vignette is relayed to the listener in the gorgeous Riding for the Feeling,
which could feasibly be interpreted as a paean to the instinctive û his personal
rejection of the cerebral. Forty minutes in length, each song winds itself into
new and unexpected terrain, whether itÆs the sense of grace about the opening
Drover gradually spinning into urgent climax, or the hesitant finger-picked
shapes of BabyÆs Breath faltering and accelerating in accordance with CallahanÆs
dry, assured delivery.
Yet as Apocalypse wears on û through the wry, funky strut of America! ("I watch
David Letterman / In Australia / Oh America!") and unhurried passages of
Universal Applicant û it becomes more streamlined. ItÆs a progression felt most
palpably in Ridingà, and a completely earned, natural one at that. By the time
heÆs wrapping things up with the languid One Fine Morning, stabs of piano sit
alongside lines like "When the earth turns cold, and the earth turns black /
Will I feel you riding on my back?", but the effect is never jarring. Rather,
Callahan has gifted us perhaps his most subversive set to date: an album less
about apocalypse and ruin than it is upheaval of the positive variety, and one
of the most contented and rewarding of his career.