I’ve been a bit lazy these past few weeks. And because of this, I’m now faced with rather a lot of good (and hopefully great) new releases coming up very soon and a whole bunch of recent purchases that I want to go on about but haven’t been on-the-ball* enough to sit down for 45 mins and get typing.
It’s altogether possible that I’m doing all of this wrong anyway. I have been moaned about for not being especially objective on occasion, but that’s because not only do I only spend my time here just talking about records I like (can’t see the point in spending time doing the opposite), I put a record on, type this nonsense and then stop when it finishes. This is usually why when I mention particular songs, they are mostly on the page in the order that they play. This is also why I don’t really mention singles much as it’s a bit of a strain on the fingers. but I digress.
This is another one of those payday blind buys, where for whatever reason I treat the ears to something new on bases various: interesting reviews, nice cover art, random recommendations and so on. This one seemed to have ticked all of the interest-piquing boxes, so it would have been rude not to.
I suppose I should really have heard Bill Callahan’s work before, and I have to admit that the fates had conspired against me. And I’m usually a bit wary of buying stuff for the first time from people with fairly extensive back-catalogues, as if I liked what I heard, then I’m left with rather a lot of stuff to buy.
I have a fair bit of saving up to do.
Selling itself as a seven-track semi-concept album, Drover opens Apocalypse in the character of a cattle driver who reappears in the final track One Fine Morning. Other than that, I admit to not having much of an idea what the album’s concept is. This is not a problem however, as the songs are the important part here rather than any overreaching story.
These songs are all delivered chiefly through Bill’s gentle baritone and a variety of instruments, almost always with a single guitar in the centre holding the song together. The simple marriage of the voice and this guitar is intriguing, as these two elements are more than capable of carrying the album on their own. This is not to say that the various additions are superfluous (far from it), but I can’t help but wonder how good an alternative, completely stripped-down version would sound as an accompaniment to this release.
Once the opening two tracks have settled the listener into a gentle, folky rhythm in much the same manner as the dustier tracks in Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan’s , the mood changes with a funky America! which seems to be coming from the prospect of an American in Australia, dreaming of home. Sounding very much like a 1970s Isaac Hayes track, it straddles the line between wistfully singing the country’s praises and tempering this pride with a knowing, almost sarcastic edge. What this song also does is to illustrate what a far-reaching term Americana can actually be when describing what this record delivers – there is a definite US folk tradition that the genre usually is read to encompass, but the other directions that are explored here are also of and from America, and feel equally at home within this description.
The surprises continue with perhaps my favourite song on Apocalypse, Universal Applicant, with the appearance of a flute and a backing rather reminiscent of anything off Iron & Wine’s most recent offering that somehow manages to segue perfectly with a second act recollecting Bowie’s Space Oddity‘s more relaxed moments. The subject matter (as with a lot of the lyrics here) is a bit non-linear and personal, but this strange collection of thoughts and images are all held together well in this dreamlike and contented piece, sitting happily in the very centre of the record.
As a whole, it’s a very light record that has a happiness that is at odds with the calamitous suggestion of its title. Then again, as Bill sings so sweetly in closer One Fine Morning, “It’s all coming back to me now, my Apocalypse…”, suggesting a past event that seems almost to have slipped from recollection – which is as good a place to have on of those as any. And just as easily as he brings us into this world of his, he brings us back out with the character of his cattle driver giving up his way of life and the closing line “My Apocalypse, DC450″, which is a curious epilogue which at first sounds like a secret code. A flight number to/from a memorable destination? A truncated address? It’s none of these; instead, it’s nothing deeper than the album’s catalogue number.
Whatever Bill Callahan’s Apocalypse was, it’s now been closed, indexed and stored away where anyone who wishes to find it can do, and definitely should.
*For “haven’t been on the ball”, read “have been in the pub”
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