Some musicians seem to effortlessly move with technology – artists like Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno ride the wave no matter where it goes.

Others, like Bill Callahan, stick with acoustic instruments and atmospheric lo-fi tape recordings that still allow you to hear the air moving in the studio.

“I still listen to records,” he says. “Side A, Side B. Yin Yang.

“There’s something else going on now. Downloading. It seems ghostly to me. It’s not fun to me. Like we are all dead and trying to retrieve music from a black hole in space. That’s what the internet is. A black hole that we are shovelling all of our information into. Nothing really changed that much [in the music scene] until the internet ruined everything.”

Having begun his career back in 1990, under the pseudonym Smog, Bill has enjoyed almost 20 years on the Americana scene, with 13 albums to his name showcasing his acoustic guitar picking, tender baritone and dark humour.

He ditched the Smog monicker in 2007 for Woke On A Whaleheart, his first album under his given name.

“It seemed appropriate to change as Smog was about humanity and Bill Callahan is about man,” he says. “Smog was the envisioning of society funnelled down into a seemingly singular and autobiographical perspective. Bill Callahan is the singular perspective functioning in those worlds.”

Latest album Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle displays a lighter, more orchestrated Bill. The surprise is the lush orchestration, with strings and brass throughout the album and even an ambient-tinged instrumental track Invocation Of Ratiocination, mixing ghostly voices, piano and cricket noises.

“It was right for the record,” he says. “It just hadn’t been the right approach for a few years.

“Since going renegade, I’ve been more daring with bringing other people in to collaborate with me.

“I had reached a point where I realised I am a bottomless well, so all protectiveness over my music went out the window. But that act has made me realise how protective of it I need to be, by enlisting the right people to help me protect it. Even from myself.

“I have destroyed many of my songs on record. I may even do it again, but with a new awareness.”

Nature runs throughout the album, with birds appearing regularly in the lyrics, and the front cover of the album devoted to a gorgeous photograph of horses grazing in a field.

“Nature is life,” Bill says. “The city concrete and skyscrapers don’t force themselves into the countryside. Yet nature – birds, grass, weeds – force themselves into the city. So, I write about what is present and what is truly moving forward.”

Although the album title appears to be very personal – Bill has referred to it in interviews as describing “a wish for a true love” – the album’s subjects vary, tackling God in the Nick Cave-esque closing track Faith/Void, while the opening song is devoted to The Postman Always Rings Twice author James M Cain.

“I don’t like the word ‘characters’,” he says. “I don’t write in characters. I’d say I make portraits. A song is a portrait. A wish for true love is a wish that many many people have. That is bigger than whether I want it or not.”

*Starts 8pm, tickets £12.50/£14.50. Call Resident in Kensington Gardens, on 01273 606312 or Rounder Records, in Brighton Square, on 01273 325440.