When Tom posted the details of upcoming Bill Callahan album Dream River, he noted that its accompanying press photo (which you can see above) was probably the first instance he’d ever seen Callahan smile in one. Tom suggested that maybe the album wouldn’t “showcase the dark, mordant wit that made him indie-famous” and while we still don’t exactly know whether that grin is indicative of what’s to come, we do know, as evidenced by this new track and via the New York Times’ fashion mag T that Callahan is testing the waters with dub. Check out “Expanding Dub” and read more about his experimentation below.

Last October, when recording his forthcoming new album, “Dream River” (out Sept. 17), over six days at the Austin, Tex., studio Cacophony, he decided the sound he needed was dub. So he left room in the arrangements of several songs to give himself the option of concocting dub interpretations… Callahan, who is based in central Texas, said it’s long been a dream of his to make dub versions of his music. “It hasn’t really seemed that feasible in the past,” he said, making references to the dozen-plus releases he recorded under the alias Smog, and the four full-length albums he’s put out in the last six years under his own name, the last of which was 2011’s lucid “Apocalypse.” He said the resonant conga beat that drives “Javelin Unlanding” lent itself to a dub makeover.

Dream River is out 9/17 via Drag City.