BILL CALLAHAN
releases anticipated new album
‘Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest‘
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Album of the Week ★★★★ ½ – The Sydney Morning Herald
Best New Music 8.5 – Pitchfork
★★★★ ½ – The Music
★★★★ – The Guardian
Album of the Week – Triple R
“A powerful meditation on home and its comforts, a collection of stirring songs that suggest that family can be a kind of salvation” – The New Yorker
“Callahan’s songwriting is still capable of making you hold your breath, without realising you are doing so.” – Bernard Zuel
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With the final part of the 20-track double album now released, Bill Callahan‘s late-phase hot streak continues with the already critically acclaimed Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, his first record since 2013, out now via Drag City / Spunk Records.
After Dream River, Bill’s life went through some changes. Good changes – marriage and a kid – but afterwards, it was suddenly harder for him to find the place where the songs came, to make him and these new experiences over again into something to sing. His songs have always been elusive, landing lightly between character study and autobiography, as the singer-songwriter often does. This felt different, though. After 20 years of putting music first, he wasn’t prepared to go away from it completely. Or perhaps, after all the time, the obvious needs to be made just a little more explicit?
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First, it’s a different kind of record. Bill’s now writing from somewhere beyond his Eagle-Apocalypse-River headspace, and Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest is very much its own beast. The songs are, by and large, shorter, and there are more of them. It took almost all of the previous three albums to add up to that many. Plus, twenty’s a lot of songs! But again, it goes a lot deeper than that.
When you listen to Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest, a feeling of totality, of completeness, will steal over you, like a thief in broad daylight. Of course it will – you’ll be listening to a new Bill Callahan record! The first one in almost six years! What more do you need to complete you?
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Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest
Out Now
via Drag City / Spunk Records
STREAM ALBUM
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