Bill Callahan - Ytilaer - CASSETTES

Bill Callahan continues to open uncanny depths of expression, blazing one of the most original singer-songwriter trails out there. Applying the living, breathing energies of his concerts to this album production, he sharpens his slice-of-life portraiture to cut deeper, releasing a stream of singalong consciousness poetic, cinematic, novelistic, comedic - and above all - musical.

There are some encounters in life about which one could say that they were simply destined to happen. The meeting of the two musicians in question is, without a doubt, one of them, because Michael Gees and Bella Adamova have a very rare talent they are both exceptionally gifted improvisers. This is no quirk of a narcissistic piano virtuoso but rather the continuation of an old and venerable tradition. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was, to some measure, expected that a pianist could also perform something extemporaneously. Bella Adamova follows the same path. This is the basis from which the current album with collaborative improvisations arose. Ten poems from different authors form the starting point for the musical expedition. The choices came completely from Bella Adamova. In their collaboration, Adamova and Gees have a vast stylistic range at their disposal which expands from folklore and classical to jazz and contemporary music. This includes a conceivably wide spectrum of musical resources, where one can find sprechgesang as well as arioso lines, and the piano can grow from a rustling cantabile to a hammered martellato.

You heard it here first - it's the Gold Record we always knew Bill Callahan had in him! Last summer, he returned from a silence of years - now, he's raring to go with another new one already. The abiding humanity of latter-day Callahan is highlighted by dark plumes of caustic wit upending standards of our everyday life and the songs that celebrate it the job, the wife, the TV, the neighbors. Bill slips easily into his characters, whether they're easy people or not - and the cross-hatch of their light and shadow is unpredictably entertaining in the manner that belongs only one singer in this whole wide world we're still talking about Bill Callahan.