Andrew Bird
Noble Beast
2009 Fat Possum
In "Anonanimal," my favorite track so far from Andrew Bird's awaited and satisfying new record, he manages to compress all of the exciting elements of his music and wordplay into one tune very well. Let's look at those layers briefly: The title suggests anonymity, a disappearing human like one worker bee in New York City or something like that. Yet in the song he sets himself apart from nature "red in tooth and claw" by calling out a "sea anemone, and that'll be the death of me," and he turns later to saying he will "become this animal/perfectly adapted to music halls...a non-animal," and this turn of phrase seems to decry now the losing touch with our natural sides for the sake of high-class ideas. Yet in the midst of all of this zoology, he launches us back to a small moment with the moment of radio surfing in the car: "hold on just a second/I know this one..."
The haunting, dark flow of the filtered violins and acoustic guitar lends a sense of foreboding to the entire tune, even when the pops of the snappy percussion come in midway through the song. Something is amiss with even being human, or something is amiss with the world around us, and who knows what it actually is, buried in all of this whimsy.
The key to fully absorbing Andrew Bird is to take the whole picture in, and let it confuse when it does, let it make sense when it does, whether lyrically or musically, in his wild blend of chamber pop and semi-throwback rock and folk. He understands that language has a sound itself, that words are valuable for their signifiers and also their sounds in themselves. Glottals are toms and bass drums, sibilance is a cymbal crashing, and palatals are snare drums.
Which brings us to the new record, Noble Beast. As I have not had too much time to soak with it, who knows how it will shape the rest of the year, but I do have to say the immediate picture I get from it is one of a whole "sound," or "style" within the confines of the one album, rather than the long distance changes of temperature and timbre from Armchair Apocrypha, which I loved.
So it lends Noble Beast both a warm, round sound, full of classic sounds, much less of Dosh's more electronic layers, and more of the washes of percussion. The violin still holds a prominent place, even more so on this record than the last, but there is also more of a sense of rock and roll happening, in a vintage sense. Less melodic guitar shows up, like the odd runs from older songs like "Skin Is, My," and "Plasticities," and more rhythm guitar abounds.
I cannot decide yet if this then makes Noble Best feel more like a monochromatic album than one with simply a coherent style within its own borders. Whatever the case, Noble Beast is well worth the listen, and for fans it will be an exciting and valuable journey along some of the most mature and complete feeling tunes Andrew has written yet.
Noble Beast
2009 Fat Possum
In "Anonanimal," my favorite track so far from Andrew Bird's awaited and satisfying new record, he manages to compress all of the exciting elements of his music and wordplay into one tune very well. Let's look at those layers briefly: The title suggests anonymity, a disappearing human like one worker bee in New York City or something like that. Yet in the song he sets himself apart from nature "red in tooth and claw" by calling out a "sea anemone, and that'll be the death of me," and he turns later to saying he will "become this animal/perfectly adapted to music halls...a non-animal," and this turn of phrase seems to decry now the losing touch with our natural sides for the sake of high-class ideas. Yet in the midst of all of this zoology, he launches us back to a small moment with the moment of radio surfing in the car: "hold on just a second/I know this one..."
The haunting, dark flow of the filtered violins and acoustic guitar lends a sense of foreboding to the entire tune, even when the pops of the snappy percussion come in midway through the song. Something is amiss with even being human, or something is amiss with the world around us, and who knows what it actually is, buried in all of this whimsy.
The key to fully absorbing Andrew Bird is to take the whole picture in, and let it confuse when it does, let it make sense when it does, whether lyrically or musically, in his wild blend of chamber pop and semi-throwback rock and folk. He understands that language has a sound itself, that words are valuable for their signifiers and also their sounds in themselves. Glottals are toms and bass drums, sibilance is a cymbal crashing, and palatals are snare drums.
Which brings us to the new record, Noble Beast. As I have not had too much time to soak with it, who knows how it will shape the rest of the year, but I do have to say the immediate picture I get from it is one of a whole "sound," or "style" within the confines of the one album, rather than the long distance changes of temperature and timbre from Armchair Apocrypha, which I loved.
So it lends Noble Beast both a warm, round sound, full of classic sounds, much less of Dosh's more electronic layers, and more of the washes of percussion. The violin still holds a prominent place, even more so on this record than the last, but there is also more of a sense of rock and roll happening, in a vintage sense. Less melodic guitar shows up, like the odd runs from older songs like "Skin Is, My," and "Plasticities," and more rhythm guitar abounds.
I cannot decide yet if this then makes Noble Best feel more like a monochromatic album than one with simply a coherent style within its own borders. Whatever the case, Noble Beast is well worth the listen, and for fans it will be an exciting and valuable journey along some of the most mature and complete feeling tunes Andrew has written yet.
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