by MATTHEW WOODLEY

There's plenty of music out there that will grab you by the shoulders and shake you. It ain't Smog's. For over a decade, Bill Callahan has been quietly making records under the Smog alias, dark, lo-fi reflections of a detached observer tossing sex, violence, rural Americana and love into one cold bath - the kind with lingering currents of warmth. Through the dry, chilling lines, he always seems one part bemused; you can almost hear a smirk in his voice, which is a deep, rich baritone, unbefitting of a 37-year-old who still half looks like a teenager. On stage he sings in deadpan of "memories that turn your bones to glass" while his knees shake vigorously back and forth. Smog gets inside you and makes your kneecaps rattle.

His newest album, A River Ain't Too Much to Love, recently came out on Drag City, a U.S. label with a cult following not unlike his own, with a roster of artists that includes Will Oldham, Jim O'Rourke and Joanna Newsom (who guests on A River...). It's his best in years. Thing is, Callahan isn't much for talking about himself to strangers. He pauses often through laconic replies. And through the phone, it's often hard to differentiate between a faint laugh and a sigh, as the Mirror discovered by calling him up in Austin, Texas.

Mirror: You move around a lot. How are you liking Texas?

Smog: I always have a really good feeling when I'm here and - just a gut feeling I get from just the people and the land and the weather.

M: It's pretty clear from your lyrics that you're not into winter.

S: (pause) Yeeeah.

M: How much of your songwriting is autobiographical?

S: (laughs/sighs) You just had to ask that, didn't you?

M: Are interviews your least favourite part of the job?

S: I guess - yeah. (pause) It's like meeting with the boss every three months to tell him what you're doing.

M: (laughs) I have a boss, too.

S: (laughs/sighs) How much are you getting paid?

M: I really like your new record.

S: Thanks.

M: But really -

S: I just get asked all the time and I don't understand why it's even important to anyone who's listening. Does it make or break the record? Does it have any bearing on the quality of a song, ya know? But I try not to write about myself, but I'll often write about people that I know, or just make up stories about what I imagine other people's lives are.

M: Your guitar playing is different and quite beautiful on this album. Have you been practising a lot or something?

S: I did actually practise a lot. It was really hard to learn to play the new album. I had to sit for months and sing at the same time. I got a classical guitar - with nylon strings. The neck is wider, so it's kind of like playing the piano or something.

Folk off

M: I realize you've been at this a long time, but do you feel a connection to any movement in American folk right now?

S: There's always a different supposed movement going on every couple years, and sometimes I get associated with it, but there's been so many, and now it just seems like a joke. I guess people like to have order and, you know, explain where this person came from and how it's okay, how they're part of something else that's going on, instead of just getting into the music. Just relax. In a couple years there'll be something else.

M: Last time I saw you here, you didn't seem too happy on stage. And you kept shooting looks at the other guitar player, who was bumbling his lines.

S: Oh, like a big, curly-hair guy?

M: Yeah.

S: (laughs/sighs)

M: So he's not coming with you this time?

S: Well, that was probably the last tour I did with him, yeah.

M: Is communicating to your audience when you're performing important to you - beyond the music? You give an air of detachment on stage.

S: Can you say that again?

M: You seem kind of grumpy.

S: (laughs) I believe that it's a performance. If I go to see a show, I like to see a performance. I don't go to get patted on the back or I don't say, like, "Why didn't the singer ask me how I was doin'?" People are free to feel what they want.

With Feathers at la Sala Rossa on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 9 p.m., $15

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