The Kirin J. Callinan Problem
Some men just announce themselves. Kirin J. Callinan walks into a room and the air pressure changes—an Australian built like an amateur boxer, dressed somewhere between a torero and a man who has made very specific life choices, wearing something unclassifiable above his upper lip that I can only describe as a philosophical position. The heat shimmer off hot asphalt. White foam on blue ocean. These are the images that come to mind. Make of that what you will.
He runs in good company: collaborator and muse to Mac DeMarco, Jay Watson, people who make interesting things. He is, by widespread reputation, hung like a piece of furniture—a chair leg, specifically—and I mention this not for prurience but because it feels somehow load-bearing to the mythology. Kirin J. Callinan as force of nature, as something too large to be entirely contained by the usual categories.
His single S.A.D. delivers something between a full-body experience and diagnosed tinnitus every single time through. It colonized my brain stem years ago and shows no signs of leaving, and I’ve stopped trying to explain it to people. Either it gets you or it doesn’t.
He played Berlin’s Kantine am Berghain, Hamburg’s Nochtwache, and Cologne’s Artheater in October 2017. If you were there, you already know. If you weren’t, I’m sorry.