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Nov 30, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Rahnee Blis

Australian experimental musician Kirin J Callinan was due to release a new album, If I Could Sing, back in June and some fans got to hear it via a listening session and USB drives given out at shows, but now it’s got a new official release date, February 2, 2024, via Worse Records (previously he was signed to Terrible Records) and [PIAS]. He has also shared another song from it, “Crazier Idea.” Listen below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork.

Callinan had this to say about “Crazier Idea” in a press release: “‘When the spirit comes to play, the game she plays is real, for those of us who fly… we fly into the sun, we’re chasing after one Crazier Idea’ begins ‘Crazier Idea,’ clueing us in to the inspired, playful three & a half minute, possibly crazy idea that’s about to transpire. If there was truly any doubt whether I could indeed sing, as the album title suggests, it is surely dispelled here.

“Mixed and mastered in a deadline day fluster in the studio it was written (credited as ‘Greasy Studios,’ deep within the suburban sprawl of northern Paris) in order to make the album’s final cut, to be pressed to plastic and streamed to the masses as soon as humanely possible; ‘Crazier Idea’ had a far more impulsive, providential, auspicious, serendipitous, chance, and curious conception. Co-writer Max Baby first inquisitively and quite innocently played me a strange sample of a sound he had created several years earlier, a sound that would now ultimately and finally become the musical core of ‘Crazier Idea’—the alien stabs and orchestral hits that continue throughout—to which Max was immediately met with ecstatic and hurried jubilation from me, who’s words and melody soon freely flowed, written and demo’d in five minutes flat, before some reverse engineering of ‘Crazier Idea’’s semi-abstract, inspired and almost jazz-fusion chordal arrangement would come to provide the song its instrumental spinal column.

“Testament to our musical ambition, ‘Crazier Idea’ is seemingly just the beginning, a sign of songs to come.”

Previously Callinan shared the album’s first single, “Young Drunk Driver,” via an amusing music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared another song from it, “ANÆMIC ADONIS (you made me a promise),” via an AI-assisted music video that features Callinan’s face put into classic boxing and bodybuilder films, such as the Rocky series. Then he shared the album’s “Eternally Hateful.”

Callinan’s last album was 2019’s covers album, Return to Center, released via Terrible Records. Read our interview with Callinan on Return to Center.

Read our My Favorite Album interview with Callinan.

His last album of originals was 2017’s Bravado.

Check out our 2017 interview with Kirin J Callinan on Bravado and the accompanying photo-shoot we did with him as he was getting a shave and a haircut at a Washington DC barbershop.

If I Could Sing Tracklist:

1. Bread of Love
2. Young Drunk Drivers (ft. Hubert Lenoir)
3. Anæmic Adonis
4. Eternally Hateful
5. If I Could Sing
6. Crazier Idea
7. Chop Chop
8. It’s The Truth
9. Untitled 8
10. My Little One
11. …In Absolutes
12. Disdain’s Not Dead

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