Manafonistas

on life, music etc beyond mainstream

2014 17 Jan

Bill Callahan and the Ascetic Values of Dub

von: Michael Engelbrecht Filed under: Blog | TB | Tags: , 2 Comments

It didn’t really come as a surprise when I got the legal download link from Drag City to listen to the twin-album of Bill Callahan’s Dream River, funnily titled HAVE FUN WITH GOD. These are real dub-versions, substracting instruments, substracting verses, emphasizing certain sounds, motives,  lines, words, bass pulses and nice holes without interrupting the flow.  If anybody thinks this might be a clever joke, she’s/he’s wrong. A lot of people who love the original album and have a certain affinity fo the aesthetics of Jamaican dub, might easily be fascinated by the way these twin songs never loose their impact. Right, it’s just another perspective, but one done with care and thought. Wonderful. Someone who works with suggestions , illusions, small hints etc. (and Bill Callahan does that a lot) just has to think, one day, about the ascetic charmes of dub music, simple as that.

This entry was posted on Freitag, 17. Januar 2014 and is filed under "Blog". You can follow any responses to this entry with RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments

  1. Martina:

    https://soundcloud.com/drag-city/bill-callahan-expanding-dub

  2. Martina:

    Sehr treffende Beschreibung. Das läuft bei mir seit Stunden auf repeat. Ein Quantensprung, ein Paradigmenwechsel. Hatte Bill Callahan ganz anders in Erinnerung, viel traditioneller. Jetzt kann ich das Interview in der Spex auch anders wahrnehmen. Ja, das sind Dokumentationen von Landschaften, ich versuche die Art dieser Landschaften noch zu erforschen, diese Musik ist Teil unserer Körper, wie Callahan sagt, und es ist besser, nicht zu viel über den Schaffensprozess zu reflektieren, wie Callahan ebenfalls sagt. First thought, best thought.


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