Cut-Ups by Leah Callahan

"Gorgeous stuff from musical powerhouse Leah Callahan."
Simon Edwards, Loose Cannon


"Leah Callahan is a true chameleon, from one recording to the next, you see different facets to her writing and performance."
Carrol Barrett, CIUT, CFRU, Radiocrown


"A stunning musician"
Audrey Gold


"There is a density to the production of Cut Ups which gives it an occasional slightly off-kilter, other-worldly feel, yet it’s warm and inviting. It engulfs the listener, allowing the individual to lose themselves in Callahan’s rich and sultry vocals. The album consists of 10 tracks, or perhaps rather vignettes is a better word, each lasting around 3 minutes, with tales of people and places through her eyes."

"Although this isn’t the most ‘instant’ of the trilogy of albums that has been released over the last 18 months, I would say after repeated listens it is the most rewarding. Leah is a natural storyteller and is gaining confidence with each album."
Iain Key, LouderThanWar
https://louderthanwar.com/leah-callahan-cut-ups-album-review/


"Boston indie singer Leah Callahan navigates between pop and art-rock on her new album Cut-Ups… (It’s filled) with lush '80s arrangements, as she takes a scalpel to her love life, making small incisions with deceptively straightforward lyrics."

"As a veteran of the scene - she was a member of Turkish Delight, Betwixt, and The Glass Set - she knows what it takes to make a mark, basking in the spotlight. She can be a self-deprecating Enfant Terrible or go all out with the ode to night life City Lights, when the possibilities seem endless and the hassles of everyday life take a back seat to living in the moment. On the album's sole cover, David Bowie's Look Back in Anger, Callahan sings both lead and backing vocals, just like her hero did... (it’s) a tribute to a man who has been ingrained into her musical DNA as a major touchstone for decades."
Hans Werkman, Here Comes the Flood
https://www.herecomestheflood.com/2022/11/leah-callahan-cut-ups.html



Leah Callahan made DIY waves in the Boston music scene in the 90s and 00s with never-very-easy-to-categorize music, garnering nominations for 2 Boston Music Awards and a Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll along the way. Multiple acclaimed releases earned her top 5 local albums of the year (Boston Phoenix, Boston Herald) as well as a top 10 jazz & world album nod from the Boston Herald.

Her first recording after a 13 year break from music, “Simple Folk” was released in March 2021 and described by US culture magazine Vanyaland as “a collection of slinky, narrative driven guitar-pop songs built around hooks…(which) feels like an album’s album in an age where albums are not very much in style”. https://vanyaland.com/2021/03/22/leah-callahan-discovers-her-teenage-dream-on-new-album-simple-folk/

While Louder Than War called it: "a really strong set of well-crafted songs that definitely rewards repeated listening." https://louderthanwar.com/leah-callahan-simple-folk-album-review-interview/

Callahan quickly followed up with “Short Stories” that October, for which UK blog “For the Rabbits” said: “These Short Stories are musical tales you don’t want to miss”.
https://fortherabbits.net/2021/10/21/get-to-know-leah-callahan/

That same month, Callahan was on the receiving end of not one but two (Turkish Delight and Betwixt) inclusions in Bandcamp’s much buzzed about feature “90s Boston indie rock list” alongside the venerable Galaxie 500 and Swirlies.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/scene-report/nineties-indie-rock-boston-list

Both “Simple Folk” and “Short Stories” have received airplay from some of the most respected alternative radio stations in the world including WXRV, WZBC, WMBR, WTSQ, WVUD, CIUT (Canada), UK’s Louderthanwar radio and Radio Lantau in Hong Kong. Leah's most recent album, "Cut-Ups" charted in the top NACC200 US charts, hitting the top 30 on stations KMHD2 in Gresham, OR (#29), KURA in Ouray, CO (#2), KVCU in Boulder, CO (#9), and core stations KSYM in San Antonio, TX (#24), WTCC in Springfield, MA (#16), and WUNH in Durham, NW (#28).


How did this album "Cut-Ups" come about?


"Right after “Short Stories” was done, in late 2021 I knew I wanted to create more music, but nothing happened, I had massive writer’s block. A chance viewing of "David Bowie: The Last Five Years" got me revisiting his late 1970s catalog. I’ve always been a huge fan, but this was very focused on a goal. With my imagination sparked by everything from the art-funk of “Stay” and “Golden Years”, to the dark ambient sounds of “Warszawa”, I poured out these songs. There is no overt stylistic mimicry (other than the obvious, the cover song), but for me it’s clear I couldn’t have written these songs without my recent preoccupation with his work. I borrow everything from Bowie’s plastic soul rhythms (for the BPMs), to his obsession with the esoteric realm (“Diabolique”), and cut-up songwriting method (“Cut-Ups”); to round it all up I did an adulatory, albeit risky take on Bowie’s “Look Back in Anger”.

As a kid my uncle, who was by no means into alternative music, gave me his entire Bowie collection, including the album “Aladdin Sane” which has scribbling on the cover. The albums stood out (it was before "Let’s Dance") among what I considered more mainstream artists of the time such as the Beatles and bands like AC/DC that my uncle also listened to. I thought it interesting that there was this vague period of time where an artist as controversially queer and avant-garde as Ziggy Stardust ruled the airwaves and was a fixture in fairly mainstream people’s homes.

Listening many years later, I have seen so many videos and internet articles that shape how I look at that artist, and listen to the music. Great videos about how Bowie recruited Carlos Alomar, how Alomar taught Earl Slick James Brown chords. Bowie’s attempt to be funk before he created his own brand of what you could call cold art funk as the Thin White Duke. I saw Bowie, (around the same time my uncle gave me his records) a glimpse of him on TV with people I didn’t recognize but found out about later, Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. I bought his (biggest ever) album in 1983 but still gravitated to his older stuff, the albums “Low”, “Lodger”, “Fame”. I loved his song “Cat People” and my schoolgirl crush had me going to sleep many a night with “Cat People” playing on repeat, it was my favorite song on the “Let’s Dance” cassette, and I didn’t know who Giorgio Moroder was then, but the spooky cinematic music felt at home with the other darkly mysterious bands I was listening to at the time, “Tones on Tail”, “Echo and the Bunnymen”. “Siouxsie and the Banshees” and “The Cure” (Which of course he had so much influence on).

After “Let’s Dance”, once again Bowie was in the mainstream but not really, selling albums and selling out shows, but still out on the fringe somehow. I remember I worked at a nursing home in college, and the girls were all drooling about Steven Tyler who was on an awards show on TV, while I was paying attention to Bowie, they all rolled their eyes at me, saying “Ugh, he’s so pale”. Admiring Bowie in the late 20th century could make you a bit of an outsider, at least in some places in the world.

Like old Hollywood movie stars, there will never be anyone that comes close to his iconicism. When you’re influenced by Bowie, you’re not just influenced by the notes of the songs, or the creativity of his backing bands, you’re influenced by everything he was as a person, his iconic beauty and the way he treated people, at first mocking them and later as an old sage, with advice and an obvious concern for everyone around him."

“Callahan may have been making music as part of Boston’s music scene since the early 90s, but Super is so fresh, jagged and new sounding, it’s hard to view her as a music veteran.”
Analogue Trash

"Alternative rock just as hellbent on being radio-friendly as it is original."
No Transmission

"Would probably go over the average pop-picker’s head, but that is their loss."
Big Takeover

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