Bill Callahan is a man of few words, which is a curious thing to say about someone who has spent the better part of three decades making a living out of them. On stage at a sold-out Le Trianon, he is affable without being ingratiating, reserved without being distant; there is a pudeur about him, a reluctance to reveal too much of himself that makes the occasional moment of candour feel almost indecent. Of course, when he starts singing, all bets are off.
Callahan's music is often filed under Folk, a designation that tells you something about its origins but precious little about its sophistication. These are harmonically rich, rhythmically intricate songs, full of unexpected turns and subtle shifts of emphasis; the lyrics are equally elusive, moving between confession, surrealism and a wonderfully dry sense of humour, sometimes within the space of a single verse. Darkness and light coexist without necessarily resolving into one another, and his deep, measured baritone delivers the most extraordinary observations with the composure of a man discussing the weather. Imagine Townes Van Zandt backed by the Velvet Underground, and you might begin to get an idea.
The musicians surrounding him give those songs an extraordinary breadth of colour and texture. Matt Kinsey's psychedelic guitar wanders in and out of the arrangements, sometimes decorating a melody, sometimes pulling it towards stranger territory, while Dustin Laurenzi's saxophone supplies long, droning lines that seem to hang in the air long after the notes have been played. Behind them, Jim White is a marvel of restraint and invention, his drumming spartan yet remarkably propulsive, finding rhythmic possibilities in places where a more conventional player might simply keep time. Together, they create music that can be delicate and spacious one moment, insistent and almost hypnotic the next, without ever overwhelming the songs themselves.
The new album, My Days of 58, is generously represented, its songs taking their place naturally alongside earlier work, in a catalogue that has grown steadily more assured without losing any of its eccentricity. There is something particularly satisfying about hearing these compositions performed by musicians who understand that their apparent simplicity is deceptive; the arrangements breathe, the rhythms stretch and contract, and the occasional burst of electric guitar or saxophone can transform the character of a song without disturbing its essential intimacy.
In one of his songs, Callahan admits that he has trouble communicating with people unless he has a guitar in his hands. Perhaps he does. But listening to him at Le Trianon, where an entire audience seems willing to follow him through every digression, every peculiar image and every uncomfortable confession, it's difficult to think of many performers who communicate quite so much.
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