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• Album des Monats April: Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

"I used to be darker/ Then I got lighter/ Then I got dark again." With these three simple lines from "Jim Cain", the opening track of his lovelorn new album, the always-succinct Bill Callahan sums up his tempestuous musical trajectory. For those of you keeping score at home, "darker" seems to refer to most of his output as Smog, when his songwriting often succumbed to the weary dread his dead-planet of a voice exudes like gravity. The lightening occurred over the course of A River Ain't Too Much to Love, his final record as Smog, and Woke on a Whaleheart, his first post-Smog effort. On these records, romantic gratitude gradually replaced romantic pessimism. Bill Callahan was happy; at peace. But it wasn't to last. The slumbering beast of love, "the lion walking down city streets," awoke, and it was pissed. He got dark again.

"I started telling the story/ Without knowing the end." And he's still doing so. Over the past two decades, Callahan's music has chronicled his unique, troubling insights about responsibility, faith, and love. The darkness that falls over Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle does not make it a Smog record-- it is an uncommonly gentle darkness that sounds light at first blush. Smog's malevolence seemed like a sweeping indictment of human nature, but here, Callahan's lyrics feel intensely personal. The record, an evident break-up affair, has such a strong air of private conversation that listening to it feels like eavesdropping; the second-person pronouns sail right past us to strike the target of the absent beloved. The reverent intimacy can become almost uncomfortable, as Callahan proffers up his words in the same way the devout handle rosaries.

Like Whaleheart, Eagle is kitted out with the instrumentation-- cellos and violins, French horns, pump organs, electric pianos-- that he embraced post-Smog. On Whaleheart, such embellishments were rangy and shambling; here they're loosely clenched, as if Callahan built the music to hold him together. Eagle addresses a specific-sounding lost love, but more broadly, it does what every Callahan record does: It takes a long hard look at who he is and what he believes at this moment. As a result, it finds him questioning the truths he discovered on Whaleheart, as when, on "Eid Ma Clack Shaw", he dreams the perfect song and scribbles it down in the middle of the night, discovering in his notebook the next morning the nonsense words of the song's title.

This self-portrait is so complex and subtle that it's tempting to skip discussing the actual music, which speaks so eloquently for itself. Some of the finest, most varied arrangements of Callahan's career are here. Wafting strings and contrapuntal soprano vocals render "Rococo Zephyr" as buoyant and lilting as its namesake. On "Eid Ma Clack Shaw", silvery electric guitar moves up and down staccato piano. "My Friend" and "All Thoughts are Prey to Some Beast" are almost like folk-Krautrock, with interlocked motifs billowing out over rigid pulses. Best of all is how the clenched arrangements open out into flowing, tender catharsis, and these are the moments you'll come to anticipate-- wait for the beatific chorus that bears Callahan's dense voice improbably high above the sinuous strains of "The Wind and the Dove", or the effervescent strings casting periodic surges of light through "Jim Cain".

Like the birds he loves so well, Callahan's albums find him alighting momentarily on precarious perches and naming what he sees. By the time we hear the music, he seems to have flown on again. His vantage from Eagle is one of textured ambivalence; his images split and shimmer like double-exposures, immediately releasing an obvious meaning quickly followed by a subtler one that equivocates the first. He's "still as a river could be," and a "child of linger on." He used to be "sort of blind," but now he can "sort of see." On "Faith/Void", he decides that it's time to "put God away," to no longer strive for his "peace in the light." Twenty years in, and Bill Callahan appears to be tearing up everything he's believed and starting from scratch, armed with the terrifying wisdom of knowing that one knows nothing, and searching for meaning regardless. He's resigned but heroically presses on. The void looms, but the music keeps it barely at bay.

Review by Brian Howe on pitchfork.com

• Ranking April 2009

7.5
Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
The Gentleman Losers - Dustland
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Lawrence English – A Colour For Autumn
Balmorhea - All Is Wild All Is Silent
65daysofstatic - Escape From New York
7
Atom™ - Liedgut
Omar S - Fabric 45
Maximilian Hecker - One Day
Pendle Coven – Self Assessment
Sophia - There Are No Goodbyes
6.5
Stimming - Reflections
10-20 - 10-20
Merzbow - Yurikamome
Del The Funky Homosapien - Funk Man
6
Death Cab For Cutie - The Open Door EP
Hildur Gudnadottir - Without Sinking
5.5
Depeche Mode - Sounds Of The Universe
Montag - Hibernation
The Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice - Moon Colony Bloodbath
Masha Qrella - Speak Low
5
Pj Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By
Various - Not Given Lightly

• Dirty Projectors - The Getty Address

Weird... and RE-MOVED to videoband

• Tipp:

• mp3s:

01 The Field - The More That I Do
02 Madvillain - One Beer (Drunk Version)
03 Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange
04 Wavves - Friends Were Gone
05 The Big Pink - Velvet (Gang Gang Dance Remix)
06 Sonic Youth - Sacred Trickster
07 Magik Markers - Don't Talk In Your Sleep
08 Sunset Rubdown - Idiot Heart
09 Balmorhea - Harm And Boon
10 Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born On A Day The Sun Didnt Rise

• Video: Balmorhea - Remembrance



myspace.com/balmorhea
balmorheamusic.com
westernvinyl.com
pitchfork.com/tv

• Live : Fleet Foxes - Live at Black Cat, Washington DC (2008)
















01 Sun Giant
02 Sun It Rises
03 Drops In The River
04 English House
05 White Winter Hymnal
06 Your Protector
07 He Doesnt Know Why
08 Crayon Angels
09 Oliver James
10 Mykonos
11 Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

From the moment they took the stage at Washington, DC's Black Cat, Fleet Foxes seemed surprised by all the attention. Lead singer Robin Pecknold made several references to the size of the crowd, telling the sold-out audience he'd never seen so many people packed together. This brought a loud cheer from the roomful of fans who otherwise spent most of the night standing in slack-jawed awe over the band's breathtaking harmonies.
After a tentative start, Fleet Foxes seemed to find their collective voice, opening with "Sun Giant," the title track to the band's EP, released earlier this year on the Sub Pop label. They followed with highlights from their self-titled debut LP, including "White Winter Hymnal." Throughout the performance, the band played with a sort of bemused astonishment, repeatedly thanking the audience for their support.

Thanx to indiepassion.blogspot.com

• Audiolicious Part Nine 2009

Schnell noch ein neues Audiolicious rausgeknallt, da mir in den nächsten Tagen die Übersicht fehlen wird und ich kaum Zeit habe.

Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill macht folkige Indie Musik. Bill scheibt herrlich komische Texte ("Too Many Birds In One Tree"). Bill hat eine rauchige, tiefgründliche Stimme. Bill hat was zu sagen. Bill benutzt sogar Streicher. Bill liebt seine Gitarre. Mr. Callahan überzeugt voll und ganz und rührt zu Tränen. Smog! (7.5/10)
myspace.com/toomuchtolove

Depeche Mode – Sounds Of The Universe
„Music For The Masses“ war Depeche Mode’s letztes Album was ich gemocht habe. Die älteren Sachen sind ohne Frage Klassiker und dann und wann gerne gehört. Doch kann ich mit Depeche Mode leider so gar nichts mehr anfangen. Da lasse ich fundierte Reviews doch lieber Andere (Telegraph, Spin, Spiegel) schreiben. Bestimmt nicht schlecht aber toll? (5.5/10)

The Gentleman Losers – The Gentleman Losers
Boomkat schreibt: „Opening with the creased prologue of 'An Empire of Coins', The Gentleman Losers sound much as you wish Boards of Canada did - taking a water-bled guitar part then incrementally coating it in a queasy blend of crackling aural lint. Recorded at night in a reputedly haunted house that comprises part of Finland's medieval district, The Gentleman Losers describe their music as "one part 60s movie soundtracks, one part wooden electronica, all recorded through a 50s Telefunken mixer we found abandoned in a basement". 'The Gentleman Losers' encapsulate a universe of quiet musical aspirations in a breezy, effortless way that's all-too rare, managing to distil their sound into a pithy diktat : "we wanted to make music from a past that hasn't happened yet..."
Sehr schönes Release und wieder diese leiernden Sounds irgendwie typisch für Finnland? Mich erinnert das teilweise auch noch neben Boards of Canada an alte Tortoise Veröffentlichungen. (7.5/10)
myspace.com/thegentlemanlosers
gentlemanlosers.com

Lawrence English – A Colour For Autumn
„Droplet“ Track One ist so ein geiles komisches Lied. Ambient Sounds aber diese Stimmenflächen, fantastisch! Auch sonst erinnert mich viel an Fennesz und somit ist das hier ein klasse Ambient Album. Lovely, very approachable micro-drones from 12k (7.5/10)
lawrenceenglish.com

Pendle Coven – Self Assessment
Tolle 12“s haben Pendle Coven veröffentlicht auf Modern Love! Neben Andy Stott und Claro Intelecto DAS Aushängeschild bei Modern Love. Deep, technoid, rollend, grollend, minimal, düster. Schöne sphärische Technosounds mut dubbigen Elementen und immer furztrocken. Sehr clean, teilweise vertrackt. (7/10)
myspace.com/pendlecoven
pendle-coven.co.uk
Textura review

Bald geht es weiter mit 65daysofstatic, Merzbow, Dirty Projectors, Del The Funky Homosapien, Nathan Fake, Peter Broderick, Mokira und Storsveit Nix Noltes...

• Video: Depeche Mode - Wrong

Director Patrick Daughters