Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle [DRAG CITY]

Why you'll love it

This Drag City LP comes with a full-colour inner sleeve of lyrics and credits. Mojo named it the second-best album of 2009, and NME later placed it at No. 443 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• Full-colour lyric inner sleeve

About the album

After years of recording as Smog, Bill Callahan had settled into his own name, and this is where it started to sound like a grand one. He cut the basic tracks in August 2008 at The Track in Plano, Texas, with engineer John Congleton and a band of Jaime Zuverza on guitar, Luis Martinez on drums and Bobby Weaver on bass. Then he went touring South and North America while Brian Beattie wrote string and horn parts, and in October they recorded those overdubs with four or five string players gathered around one microphone.

The arrangements give his deep, deliberate baritone a lot of room. "Jim Cain" opens the album with a slow, steady stride, "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" is as strange and lovely as its title, and "Too Many Birds" circles hypnotically. "Rococo Zephyr" and "All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast" stretch out, and "Faith/Void" closes on a long, meditative note. It reached No. 2 on the UK Independent Albums chart.

The producer is credited simply as Raven, followed on the sleeve by a long, anguished apology to the bird. We've read a lot of liner notes, and that's a first.

Also at Kops: more Bill Callahan on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter

Tracklist

Listen

On Drag City (cat# DC385), the 2009 album.