Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Smog’s album Supper which you can purchase here. Listen to “Our Anniversary” from the record below and read about it after the jump.
Listen six seconds in to “Our Anniversary.” Jim White starts the hi-hat then and doesn’t stop for the next six minutes. Smog, as an artist, may not be underappreciated (he, as Bill Callahan, was on the cover of this magazine less than a year ago, for one), and even though Supper as an album may not be the most widely celebrated from his catalog, what is slept on is the minute detail comprising the songs’ simple structures, much of that the responsibility of Jim White’s drumming.
As an album, Supper is just less good than A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, which is very near perfect. White holds that record together completely, playing like he is falling over onto his kit, flanging fingers like individual drumsticks. He has a light touch, though, so it is possible to listen without identifying White as the album’s true glue. “Our Anniversary,” from Supper, though, reins in his expansive impulses and filters them to the hi-hat. Like Mitch Mitchell, he has taken a syncopated jazz approach and keeps time simply and calmly. “Our Anniversary” is really depressing (“We are far from flowers, cut and dried/ So let us thrive let us thrive let us thrive/ Just like the weeds we curse sometimes”) and he just rides it out, sucks it up and moves us along. But maybe this is to the credit of Callahan, who must have recognized the need for a little bit of balance. His guitar line throughout is unfaltering and high toned; it would not be unfair to call it ingratiating at points. But White as counterpoint never lets it wail. He reminds me of a country doctor, traveling from record to record, securing songs and soothing musicians. “Our Anniversary” isn’t remarkable, it’s anything but, really; an idea Smog song realized. But without White it would be so much less than that, Callahan aping himself. Instead, it’s a steady driven statement of intent.
And, hey, look I know this is corny to read about, I’m not on my high horse about Smog or some bullshit, but listen to it once all the way through, then go back and listen to the drums. How can anyone talk about Bill Callahan and not talk about Jim White? They are mutual conduits. Sometimes shit is lonely but at least they’ve got each other.
Related:
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- Live: Bill Callahan in NYC
- FADER TV: Bill Callahan Live at Other Music
- Bill Callahan Finds a Tempered Peace in Horses and White Light
- Video: Polow And Bangladesh At Castle T-Pania
- posted on Feb 12, 2008 in SLEPT ON
- tags Bill Callahan, psych/folk, Smog
