The conversation is like the beating / taken in a dream

What better way to shake off the morning cobwebs with a bit of driving guitar and alienated lyrics? Yes folks, it's Smog, with a couple of tracks from 2000s Dongs of Sevotion. I have a new hifi system, and keep playing all the music with depth and width to show off the gorgeous speakers.

It's Mumblecore, and it's back!

Actually, mumblecore refers to American indie films whose 'indieness' is mostly a matter of featuring bearded slackers mumbling into their facial fuzz, as opposed to clean-shaven white-toothed Hollywood stars. 


However, I have a huge soft spot for the equivalent in music, and it seems to be the trend of the year: Bon Iver, Deerhoof, Megafauna and co all seem to be taking The Band's hirsute template and stripping out the showmanship. I've long been a devotee of the bands this lot have followed: Will Oldham (Palace, Palace Music, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy), Bill Callahan (aka Smog and (Smog)) and Low (Mormon drug slowcore), so I'm hugely pleased that Callahan and Low have new albums (Apocalypse and C'Mon) out next month, and I can spend spring feeling melancholic. 


I also love this line from Callahan's books, Letters to Emma Bowlcut:

 "I'm not mild-mannered, but you may want to bring a book."

Here's a taster - one of Callahan's most accessible tracks from last year's Eid Ma Clack Shaw, his catchily claustrophobic 'No Dancing' and Low's 'Words'.












And if you like that but think it's all a bit pretty, try some Slint. Mmm… mathrock

Meanwhile, on my hard drive

I've mostly been listening to The Charlatans (Some Friendly and Up To Our Hips, both of which stand up better than I expected after 20 years), The Cure (Disintegration - still astonishing) and Smog's Dongs of Sevotion, which is brilliant. I particularly like 'Dress Sexy at My Funeral' (as an added bonus: John Peel's sainted voice at the start)



Next up though is a band most of you probably won't have come across. I can't even remember how I got to know The Bitter Springs - probably on a split 7" on a trendy record label. Whenever I play some, I wonder why I don't play (and buy) their music more often. They used to be Last Party and also perform as Subway Sect when Vic Godard's on tour.

The only two albums I have are Five Die Filming This Lazy Lark and Benny Hill's Wardrobe, titles which remind me of Half Man Half Biscuit, though The Bitter Springs are much more indie (in the old sense of miserable and self-pitying) than HMHB's folk-indie. Their website hasn't been updated since 2005 - but they're worth checking out if rumours that they're still alive are true.



One of my favourite Christmas songs:

Eid Ma Clack Shaw

No, I don't know what it means either though it sounds like Lallans to me, but Bill Callahan comes after Bikini Kill in my iTunes library, and that's one of the songs on his Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle album, of 2009.

I've got loads of Callahan's work - under his own name and as Smog - on vinyl, but only this latest one on CD. He's one of those singer-songwriters who'll never, ever, trouble the charts, be adapted as a ringtone or ice-cream van tune, but is cited in hushed tones by musicians and lovers of the slightly offbeat (I'm trying to avoid the term 'cult'). If you don't know him, you really need to chase down the Smog and Callahan albums. They're often twisted soul-country and always melancholic.

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle is quite like his Smog stuff - moody, grumpy but somehow transformative (and he namechecks Mogwai too). It's miserable, mumbling and lonesome, but also insanely catchy.

I think that 'All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast' is nothing short of genius.



'Too Many Birds' is dedicated to Ben and Dan:



'Eid Ma Clack Shaw'



'The Wind and the Dove'