BILL CALLAHAN - RESUSCITATE

Released: 26/07/24

There are too many live albums in the world. For every Nina Simone in Concert or Stop Making Sense, both of which not only sound great but arguably feature renditions of songs that are better than their studio LP versions, there is a Got Live If You Want It! by The Rolling Stones or Vanilla Ice’s extremely awful Extremely Live. Happily, firmly in the former camp lies Bill Callahan’s Resuscitate!, which captures the alt-country legend’s show at Chicago’s Thalia Hall last year, in support of his lovely 2022 LP YTILAER. 

It always helps when you have an excellent album as the focus of a live record, but when you have a backing band as good as Callahan did on this particular tour, it would have been a criminal waste not to record it. Featuring virtuoso guitarist Matt Kinsey, celebrated tenor saxophonist (and Bon Iver’s go-to man) Dustin Laurenzi, Dirty Three’s Jim White on drums, and the terrific harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, among others, YTILAER tracks such as ‘First Bird’ and ‘Coyotes’ (some of the finest of Callahan’s career) are imbued with a magical kinetic energy, warmth and feeling of space and place that is simply a joy.