Smog - 'A River Ain't Too Much To Love' (Domino / Drag City)
4/5
By: Tim Dellow
If all life is an illusion, then Bill Callahan seems real. While this album may be presented in the manner of an intimate campfire sing along, lamenting on the humble pleasures of life in his inimitable spoken word voice (a cross between Lou Reed and Kurt Wagner, for those unaware of his extensive back catalogue) it is, in fact, a highly constructed and considered recording. This hyper-real portrayal appears to be as natural as the soft, wiping sound of fingers on strings, but in fact equally celebrates the silence picked up by the microphones; the whispers of the recording machine.
Smog (or his excellent and understated percussionist) is a master of mirroring his subject matter in the actual music, but removing it a stage further into an artistic representation.
Let me clarify. There is nothing that interesting about an orange. It could be described thusly: 'Round citrus fruit, whose name defines a colour.' But in the hands of a poet, it could be transformed into a couplet that sparks the imagination of the reader into a deeper, edifying thought process.
Similarly, one could record a train, with a microphone, and then sing over it a poem about said mode of transport. But even if it was as beautiful a poem as 'In the Pines', Smog's re-writing of the Leadbelly trope, 'Where did you sleep last night', it would not be half as important statement if it was not poeticised musically by the hand of man. In this way, the subtle snare textures that mirror the locomotive force of the subject, and belie the sense of lack that the lyric suggests. On 'Running and Loping', a languid country trope, seemingly improvising an observation on modern living 'getting off on the pornography of my past', painting a picture slowly and carefully of the ludicrous temperament of the human condition in the twenty first century; 'reading my paper...wonder if that rapper really did rape her', as the brushes turn an aural page.
Through celebrating the simple things in life, whilst alluding to their veiled complex nature without obliterating the clarity of thought which their undemanding facade allows, Smog has created another important, considered and supremely crafted album, which should be regarded with the utmost respect. The infinite and intangible nature of the simplest day is forever preserved in an accessible and entertaining form.
Artists in this article: Smog
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