- Artist
- Andrew Bird
- Label
- Fargo
- Release date
- 16th April 2007
- Genre
- Indie/rock
Chicago singer-songwriter bows, plucks and whistles his way through stunning album of strange beauty
Andrew Bird is a singer, violinist and professional whistler - not the skills you’d usually associate with an acclaimed indie artist but then again, Bird is something of a one-off. Following the breakthrough success of his alt-country rock album in 2005, The Mysterious Production Of Eggs, this latest collection from the Chicago-based talent should ensnare the wider audience his magical music deserves.
Bird has taken his songs in a more guitar rock-based direction, while retaining the pizzicato and bowed violin licks and eerily looped whistling that lend his output such intriguing undertones. Enriched by a greatly improved voice that can swoop from low deadpan to tremulous Jeff Buckley-style warble, Armchair Apocrypha is a strange and heady mix of no little symphonic beauty.
The broad sweep of Bird’s lyrics are also enough to throw you off balance. Seared throughout with rueful reflection, he explores his confusion over the human condition, trying to find connections through history (see Plasticities - "We’ll fight for your music halls and dying cities, they’ll fight for your neural walls and plasticities") or psychology (on Darkmatter - "Do you wonder where the self resides, is it in your head or between your sides?").
The trick Bird pulls off is to never sound po-faced – he can be equally playful and funny with his musings (see Darkmatter again - "When I was a little boy, I threw away all my action toys, while I became obsessed with Operation, with hearts and minds and certain glands") – and this is due in no part to a plethora of addictive melodies and hooks, best seen on stunning album fulcrum Armchairs: a seven minute slow burner of spaced out violin and piano atmospherics that swells towards a heartbreaking, show-stopping climax. Wolf whistles all round for this one.
More to try: Jeff Buckley: Grace My Morning Jacket: Z Sufjan Stevens: Illinois Bright Eyes: Cassadaga
