“And we’re coming out of dreams,
As we’re coming back to dreams.”
These are the opening lines from ‘First Bird’, the opening track from Bill Callahan’s latest album, YTILAER.
If, in these dreams, you were somehow driving across Bill Callahan’s now home state of Texas and saw the front cover from this record in your rear-view mirror its title would spell REALITY. But above the Virginian artist Paul Ryan’s semi-abstract painting of what at first appears to be a brightly coloured tropical bird though may in fact be a representation of Mother Nature herself, Bill Callahan’s name would now appear in reverse.
In this world nothing is quite what it seems.
And it is from this place of apparent contradictions that YTILAER first emerged. As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic seemed to recede, Bill Callahan once more poked his head back over the creative parapet, determining that he needed to produce an invigorating, dynamic sound to propel both himself and others to somewhere far removed from the torpor of lockdown. Yet in wanting to do so, there still remained an uncertainty on Callahan’s part as to what he might actually find once he got back out there.
Then back in June any such hesitancy appeared to have eased. News broke that Bill Callahan would be touring the UK in November. He was to be joined on this tour by Matt Kinsey (guitar), Jim White (drums), and Dustin Laurenzi (tenor sax), and we were advised that the four men would be bringing the power of music to the people. Such is the extent of Callahan’s talent and reputation – forged first in the artistic heat of his work under the band name of Smog, and then smelted even further with a run of what is now a total of eight superb solo albums – these five dates sold out in double-quick time.
By the time that the tour arrives in Leeds, YTILAER has already been out for nearly three weeks and if Bill Callahan is still holding any doubts about life beyond the pandemic it is soon abundantly clear that they have long since gone. Piped onto the stage to the tune of Tina Turner‘s ‘Private Dancer’ and set on its way by a blast of Jim White’s whistle, the show takes off with, quite naturally, ‘First Bird’.
Bill Callahan opens the arteries of YTILAER in concert and the songs from the record just spill right out, teeming with additional invention and an even greater immediacy. ‘Boll Weevil’, that old toe-tapper from the singing cowboy himself, Tex Ritter, emerges as if from a swamp, dripping with dangerous ideas. And not for the last time tonight it induces Bill Callahan into some frenetic spasmic dancing, his legs having acquired a mind all of their own.
The introduction of the saxophone for these live dates is a master stroke on Bill Callahan’s part. The instrument doesn’t actually feature on YTILAER but here it brings a completely different dimension to those songs. ‘Coyotes’ – probably the best song on the new album – is enhanced even further, driven along by the blaring textures of Dustin Laurenzi’s saxophone and the elasticity of Jim White’s drumming. The incessant squall of Matt Kinsey’s guitar relocates ‘Naked Souls’ into the realms of the avant-grade, whilst the dénouement of ‘Drainface’ suddenly metamorphoses into a supreme free jazz wig out.
An extended ‘Riding for the Feeling’ – from Bill Callahan’s 2011 album Apocalypse – takes this truly tremendous show well beyond the two hour mark. “It’s hard to say goodbye” intones Callahan, a sentiment that is readily shared by every single soul inside the Brudenell tonight, as he proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he is, in fact, the complete master of this reality.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Bill Callahan at the Brudenell Social Club
