Track 20: "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" by Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan, who typically releases music under the moniker Smog, put out one of his best album to date with Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle. As you may have read in my brother's post earlier, we are on opposite ends of the spectrum as Smog fans (with me playing the role of fanatic) and yet we both toyed with the idea of making it our album of the year.

This is the second time Callahan has departed from his alias both in name and style. While it's not a full-blown sea change, here he's relied less on cryptic witticism threaded through the darkness made by single track recordings. Callahan finds himself once again pessimistic about romance, but the storytelling that follows is made much livelier by being allowed to have a less jagged and simplistic melody. The resulting effect of this new soundscape is less woe-is-me and cynical portrait that is more sagely in it's wounded reflection.



“Eid Ma Clack Shaw” is another break-up song and great representation of Callahan's transformation as the lo-fi superstar of the Drag City roster has allowed an nother to be involved with the recording and his distinctive, baritone voice is accompanied by French horn, piano, and strings rather crackle of the cassette.

20.) "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" by Bill Callahan

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