Tickets are now available for David Lance Callahan at The Grace.
“The year’s stand-out album for me” – Stewart Lee
“A sort of modern-day pastoral” – Simon Armitage
“Locates a common ground between trad British folk and Saharan blues . . . Terrific” – Mojo
David Lance Callahan would deserve a built-in fanbase simply based on his C86 band The Wolfhounds alone. But then there was his experimental ‘90s band Moonshake and now a righteous and wonderful solo album, his long-awaited first, ‘English Primitive I”. This is a diverse, weighty, and sometimes perplexing – in a good way – album. It is not a continuation of Callahan’s charming 2019 solo single ‘ ‘Strange Lovers’. He utilizes raga, traditional English folk, first generation psychedelic wyrd folk, punk, West African Gnawa, and more exotic-sounding scales than anyone this side of prog rock. There is a persistent droning pedal note in the background throughout that has an unsettling effect. Callahan has been described as a social documentarian, and that description certainly fits this material. ‘Born of the Welfare State’ might someday be covered by Billy Bragg to celebrate the original post-war ideal compassionate society – the NHS, state schools, housing, healthy food, and subsidized job training – in contrast to the attacks on these institutions today.
See the full events listing for The Grace here.