Splinters

Oh I do like the new (Smog) record with the wonderfully deprecating title Accumulation: None. It's only (only) a compilation of lo-fi leftovers, session tracks and b-sides, and it misses one or two fine songs I remember hearing on the radio. But it has several of those uncanny moments one pursues in order to relive in order to find out what it is, as if it had anything to do life. And yet it's only a few notes on a piano (do pianos have notes? I don't understand anything about music), or lines like "the type of memories that turn your bones to glass", repeated once, that does it, whatever it is.

This record also confirms Bill Callahan's lyrical obsession with horses, harbours, the sea, and the colours red and white. What's going on there? Then there's the oddly affecting Large Glass-like CD cover. As I said, I like it, a lot, for what it's worth, which isn't much, in the end, is it, really? I thought not.