Reality is Bill Callahan's latest album. Reality should actually be a mirror image, not round the right way. It was written as a way of helping everyone to re-connect with Reality in these most surreal times, as we emerge from the pandemic, with all the other seismic shifts of the last few years. Bill is joined on this album by Emmett Kelly, Sarah-Ann Phillips, Jim White and Matt Kinsey. The CD, Cassette and download versions are out now with the Vinyl due in the new year.
The album opens with the careful acoustic guitar strums of First Bird as Bill Callahan's burnished vocals set up a sense of dislocation from reality, are we dreaming, were we dreaming, is it a dream, if it's a dream how do we come back to reality, well with understated beauty and the sounds of that First Bird call you hear at dawn. Bill has visions of his children in the haze of the morning.
Everyway opens with semi classical guitar with soft keyboards, as Bill begins to add at times shocking imagery, of someone so cold they are warming there hands in the corpse of a horse, this goes deep into the despair of the last few tortured years, transposing them far further back to frontiers unknown as the shimmering strings, careworn drumming engulf the listener.
Bowevil is the traditional folk blues song, first made famous by Leadbelly, re-worked and re-imagined as Bill sings about the way the Bowevil is an invasive species looking for a home, as we as humans hope the Bowevil makes his home back in Texas far from where we are.
Partition with ringing finger picked guitar figure that has all sorts of instrumentation built around it as Bill sings of the human condition and some humans constant need for Partition, as the organ rises the miasma has no clear exit, as you do what you need to do to get through all this. The sweeping backing driving us forwards into the new Reality.
Lily opens with Bill telling us that he started writing your death song long before you were gone, over the sparsest acoustic guitar, this eulogy for a departed mother is evocative sad and full of love for the now long departed mother.
Naked Souls feels like a lullaby for someone who has become a recluse, or are they just in lockdown, afraid of the world outside, building his own home fortress, which is not normal lullaby lyrical content, but this is gently effective as it seeps in, as we look at our Naked Souls, as the brass comes in the backing singers help this to build into something far more widescreen, trumpets heralding the way forwards.
Coyotes takes a different look at Coyotes to the one The Velvet Underground did, as this is no reunion song, more of a love song with piano flourishes as Bill looks at the Coyotes watching his dog waiting for the time when they might swap places, as his dog also dreams of that freedom and no more domesticity.
Drainface is another gently evocative song, barely there, yet fully formed, staring up at us from the gutter offering comfort, as he feels like his life has gone down that drain, as the object of bills disgust has dead seagulls falling out of there mouths as they speak, which could be an analogy of all the distorted reality coming from our politicians in the last few years.
Natural Information feels more upbeat for a song of deep contemplation, wonderfully careworn superbly played a song that I've come back to a few times since it joined my review pile, it always makes me sit and listen to try to hear everything going on in the mix.
Horse features Bill telling us the Horse walks through the front door, which could easily be about a drug problem coming home as the song of the forbidden unfurls with more opiated imagery, sparser than spare cymbals create cascades for the Horse.
Planets takes us seemingly back to old folk song territory of Skipping To Malloo only rethreaded to this slow mordantly beautiful song of exploration, roaming far from home.
The album closes with Last One At The Party sounds full of regret as Bill sings about that bloke that seems like he'll never leave, who is always up for another argument, which set to this gentle loving music is a nice contrast.
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