Bill Callahan will embark on a long tour following the release of his latest slow-burning and meditative folk album, Apocalypse. For the inaugural show kicking off a set of dates that stretch into the beginning of August (Dublin will be his next stop after Austin), Callahan will play the Mohawk here in his adopted hometown. more ›

Bill Callahan, the staring-into-the-void force behind Smog, has been at the forefront of the lo-fi scene since the early 90s. Although Smog’s music was highly personal and bore Callahan’s signature cold vocals and dolorous lyrics, this year’s warmly lauded Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle is only the second album released under his own name. Touching upon his on-again, off-again relationship with darkness, it not only features some of the best lyrical lines of 2009 (“I used to be sort of blind but now I can sort of see”), but more than fully justifies his movement away from lo-fi instrumentals through his most supple arrangements yet. more ›

Recently, during a performance by an anonymous Austin band, someone spotted Bill Callahan in the crowd, walked straight up to him and looked into his face: "Your new album," the audience member said, pausing for emphasis, "is perfect." And so it is in regards to Callahan's second release under his own name, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, which is so damn good it's receiving dark horse consideration for album of the year. Writing songs about the songs he wrote while sleeping, and imploring his listener, and maybe himself, to put God away, Eagle is a testament to an adult musical vision: the album is 100% free of excess, and every subtlety seems to be the product of careful consideration, or at least the spontaneous intuition of someone who's been building beautiful songs for more than a decade. more ›

Right away on "Jim Cain," it's hard not to notice the less angular and gritty approach on this record compared to Woke on a Whaleheart. There's a bit of ethereal mist in the air, misty horns and strings swirling about, but since this is a Bill Callahan record, things get a bit darker (and proceed that way) until the end. He's singing about dreaming and waking to an empty room, imagining a woman who may or may not be there, asking for a handbook on mental clarity and noticing the birds have nowhere to land -- everything is in the sky, a mind, a cloud. more ›

Due April 14, Callahan's latest solo effort lives up to the gentle AM Gold vibes of the cover art. Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle is delicate, gruff, manly and demure all at once. Joined by Thor Harris, Jonathan Meiburg, a handful of accompanying musicians (French horn, cello, violin, etc.) and Brian Beattie at the helm, Callahan is as stately and romantic as ever. more ›

Bill Callahan video "Nothing Rises to Meet Me" more ›