Bill Callahan's early pseudonym Smog. My first Smog album was the untouchable Knock Knock, which will come much later. Once I had bought most of his contemporary records I started reaching into his back catalogue and picked up this collection of B-Sides, singles, etc.
It starts off with a pretty challenging listen in Astronaut - seemingly the sound of a man banging a door while screaming amidst a pour of white noise. The lo-fi production continues with the ironically titled Hit (great "it's not going to be a hit so why bother?" lyrics) - lots of saturated guitars, saturated vocals, flirting dangerously with sounding a little too much like geeky whining but just avoiding it through the strength of the performance. The album flits about between these earlier noises and his much better alt-country period (though that's just a handy label for lazy people like me who like using categories as shorthand; he always makes music in his own distinct style). There are enough hooks, tunes and decent ideas peppered throughout to make it interesting but I don't think it will make it to heavy rotation as it seems more like the sketches that lead to the full blown masterpieces that come later; while listening to it I find myself tempted to skip off to Knock Knock or Dongs Of Sevotion.
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