Andrew Bird

Release: 2009

Style: indie / light prog-rock

Label: www.bellaunion.com

Website:  www.andrewbird.net

Playing Time: 54:16 + 51:07

This double album will be a pleasant surprise and an encounter with a really original artist for many a music lover. His light-footed, optimistic music and clever sur-realistic poetry is hard not to be appreciated. I wonder how come that I didn’t discover this highly talented songwriter, virtuoso violin player and gifted singer a long time ago. He is in recording business already since 1996. I looked up a few of his earlier albums, and was flabbergasted how really good they are. If you dig this one, check also at lease “Armchair Apocrypha” from 2007 and “The Mysterious Production of Eggs” from 2005. And may be it is worth an effort to look up his former band - the Bowl of Fire.

Bird’s stile is a light kind of indie rock, mostly quite cheerful, a little eclectic, sometimes a little jazzy or folk, sometimes rocky and electric. I will compare him with Cat Stevens, but a little more playful, or Jeff Buckley, but a little lighter. This last comparison actually stands even stronger, because Bird has, like Buckley, a beautiful, little guttural and very flexible tenor, and his song writing also produces nice and catchy tunes, still being quite complex and intelligent.

Bird is a very skilful whistler and violin player. He started playing violin already in 1977, since the age of four. Luckily, Bird has a sense of measure. The violin is present, but not too much in the foreground, mostly somewhere behind or on the side of the arrangements, underlying the tunes, and always subtle. It produces sometimes quite unexpected for this instrument sounds, like a saw, mosquito, cymbals or ukelele. His pizzicato technique (plucking the violin strings) is really marvellous.

This luxury edition consists of two CD’s. The first one, “Noble Beast”, is a bundle of musical stories about various weird little creatures, who have characters and life stories, just like human beings. Kafka comes inevitably in my mind. Only Bird’s beetle doesn’t keep laying down on his back, helpless and vulnerable. On contrary, it is feeling steady on it’s legs, frolicking around, finding some interesting microscopic things and thinking unusual thoughts about them. Sometimes, when it feels like, it even spreads it’s wings and flies away, high above the ground, finding some interesting macroscopic things and thinking unusual thoughts about them. Bird’s poetry is surrealistic, sometimes a little Dadaistic. He plays with words, metamorphosing the meanings and spelling by switching a letter or two. In this, he is more progressive with poetry, than with music, at least on this record.

All the 14 songs are perfectly arranged and thought out, to the last note. Every number is a precious diamond, where the maker have cut many facets, making it shine and attract in a very subtle and non-obtrusive way. The songs have everything, that an ideal progressive rock songs should have: a progression of the melody, rhythm changes and two or three beautiful tunes, which I myself can not resist to whistle along. But it’s not a prog-rock record. The music is a little more light and “normal” than what we usually mean with prog-rock, so may be indie is the most appropriate category for it.

The second record in the set, “Useless Creatures”, is a different story. It is completely instrumental, and this time the music is everything but normal. It is much more unusual and even avant-garde. The violin moved to the foreground here, filling the space left empty by the absent voice. And it does it wonderfully. Bird invents violin techniques and sounds, making every number a real adventure. It would be fun, if Bird turned things around here, and wrote lyrics for the second cd as well, but this time, making “normal” lyrics to the abnormal music, just opposite to what he did on “Noble Beast”! Oh well, never mind this, it just pops up in my mind. “Useless Creatures” is beautiful like it is, only it has a different mood, so choose the setting to listen to it right, and you will enjoy it.

5 stars, highly recommended for prog-rockers, looking for something really new and fresh.

Tracklist:

Noble Beast

1. Oh No 4:20         

2. Masterswarm 6:35         

3. Fitz and the Dizzyspells 3:36    

4. Effigy 5:06         

5. Tenuousness 3:51         

6. Nomenclature 2:54        

7. Ouo 0:20  

8. Not a Robot, But a Ghost 5:37  

9. Unfolding Fans 0:57       

10. Anonanimal 4:47          

11. Natural Disaster 4:18   

12. The Privateers 3:24     

13. Souverian 7:18  

14. On Ho 1:08

Useless Creatures

1. Master Sigh (2:23) 

2. You Woke Me Up! (7:26)

3. Nyatiti (3:59)

4. The Barn Tapes (10:03)

5. Carrion Suite (9:47)

6. Spinney (0:49)

7. Dissent (3:51)

8. Hot Math (7:20)

9. Sigh Master (5:24)

Musicians:

Mike Lewis Clarinet

David Lindvall Bass, Engineer

Tony Crow Juno

Glenn Kotche Percussion

Andrew Bird Guitar, Engineer, Producer, Whistle (Human), Violin, Arranger, Vocals

Jeremy Ylvisaker Organ, Shortwave Radio, Guitar, Bass

Todd Sickafoose Double Bass, Editing, Mixing

Martin Dosh Percussion, Keyboards, Loops

Emil Svanängen Flute, Vocals (Background)

Kelly Hogan Vocals (Background)