Hayden - Skyscraper National Park

I missed a few weeks where I meant to cover new albums by Spoon (pretty awesome) and Retribution Gospel Choir (really awesome, read my interview with Alan Sparhawk here), but since these have had their fair share of press I'm going to look back a little and share an old favorite. Tonight is quiet and snowy and calls for some music to match the mood.

Hadyen - Skyscraper National Park [Badman/Hardwood, 2001]

Hayden began making music back in 1996, as a shorter version of his full name, Hayden Desser. This Canadian began his musical career with an exceptionally low, raspy voice and a usually out-of-tune guitar, singing songs of loss and heartbreak so rough and honest that you could never call them whiny. Putting out his debut in that year, he floundered around with a little acclaim, until his 2001 album Skyscraper National Park turned from a self-distributed CD-R into a breakout album. OK, so it's not a total breakout because you've never heard of the guy, but I'm here to change all that.

Skyscraper National Park is instantly more accessible where his previous work could be challenging--Hayden traded in his gruff baritone for a more modest range and supplemented his great acoustic guitar work with some electric and synthesizers. Still, the album maintains its roots in bleak Canadian folk. Hayden's narrative and subject matter remain similar, evocatively dealing with a car crash, a home invasion, or simple things like driving out of the city into the wilderness. The sound borders on melancholy due to its subdued nature, but there is really beautiful music behind the arrangements and singing. Particularly, "Dynamite Walls" is a smash, with a sweeping build of electric guitar as Hayden paints a picture of driving down the highway, escaping city lights in favor of tree lines. This is an ideal album for gloomy weather, bedtime, or just relaxing outside. I'd recommend exploration of his other work too, as his previous albums featured some great acoustic guitar/harmonica work and his latter ones are packed full of some great pop gems with full orchestration. For now, grab these two tracks off of Skyscraper National Park and see if it's your thing.

download:   Dynamite Walls
download:   Street Car

Hayden has been uncharacteristically active lately, releasing 2009's excellent The Place Where We Live after only a one year gap from his previous album In Field & Town. Here's to hoping he's got another gem in store for 2010!

Owen Pallett - Heartland

The artist formerly know as Final Fantasy has decided to give up his old moniker to avoid some potential legal issues, now simply going by his name, Owen Pallett. This is not a terribly big deal since, A) Final Fantasy was essentially a solo project anyway, and B) Pallett is continuing to make incredible music, with this release likely to hold up as one of the best of the year as 2010 unfolds.

Owen Pallett - Heartland [Domino, 2009]

For those unfamiliar with Pallett's previous work as Final Fantasy, it's a little difficult to explain his characteristic sound. To compare him to Andrew Bird is a good starting point, as both root their music in culling as many different sounds out of a violin as possible and layering them to their whims. The most apparent departure is that while Bird tends to take cues more from pop and jazz music, Pallett leans more toward electronics and the orchestral bombast of musicals. This penchant for the grandiose becomes fully apparent on his latest album, Heartland, containing by far his most epic work to date.

Right out of the gate, Pallett whips out all of his trademarks-- layered, eerie strings supported by bubbling synthesizers and Pallett's own tenuous voice. The story is loosely a narrative supposedly about a fictional character, Lewis, who becomes aware of the fact that Pallett is singing songs about him and proceeds to retaliate. While I don't entirely follow the story, I do follow the fact that song for song, this album is incredible. The variation in sound and feeling that Pallett is able to achieve across the 12 tracks is nothing short of amazing. The orchestration is so intricate that it would give Sufjan Stevens and Nico Mulhy a run for their money. Pallett manages to achieve a perfect mix of strings and horns over synthesizers and piano that is just, well, perfect. Highlights here are "The Great Elsewhere" and "E is for Estranged" which show a mastery of arrangement not often seen in popular music of late. Still I would be remiss to call it a perfect album-- "Mount Alpentine" is brief and serves as a questionable transition and "Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" delves a little too far into minimalism and quickly becomes a bit boring. The last 5 tracks of the album create an ending so incredible though, it just makes you want to play the album all over again. You'll be glad you did.

download:   Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
download:   The Great Elsewhere

I saw Pallett play a few months ago at one of this last shows as Final Fantasy while on tour with The Mountain Goats. Make sure you jump at the chance to see him live--it is truly a treat. Check out this version of him powering through "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" despite torrential downpours:

Sandbox Astronomy - View from the Center of the Universe

It's the start of a new year, and what's better for a cold wintry day than some great indie folk? For something fresh and not hyped-to-death, look no further than the stylings of Pittsburgh's emerging folk-pop band, Sandbox Astronomy. Forming in 2008, the band released their debut EP for free in October 2009, featuring four tracks that are highly enjoyable and show great promise for this band going forward.

Sandbox Astronomy - View from the Center of the Universe
[self released, 2009]


There's a lot to love about Sandbox Astronomy--the band boasts a sound well-rooted in chamber pop, with instrumentation including violin, banjo, mandolin, and xylophone. The lead vocals are often accompanied by male or female harmonies (or both!), which are always spot-on and complement the melody quite well. For an ensemble rooted in folk, Sandbox Astronomy is still able to pack in a good amount of catchy hooks, and though the song structures may be simple, they works very well and make each track memorable. If you enjoy the sound of Okkervil River, this will be right up your alley.

Opener "Lost Languages" kicks off the EP up-tempo, with a nice interplay of guitar, mandolin, and violin trading off on the main riff, and shows off the talent of all three vocalists. The second track, "Bird in Hand," pulls back a little, exploring some slightly discordant harmonies among some plucked banjo--probably the weakest of the four songs, but still enjoyable. "This Is How," the third song, is the longest and most intricate of the EP. "This is how I learned to drink my coffee black," sings vocalist Graeme throughout the track--a great image of swallowing bitterness in a somber tale of loss. Closer "Astronaut" boasts big harmonies with jangly guitar, melodica, and loose bass reminiscent of early Neil Young recordings. At first I wasn't sold on the EP, but after repeated listens, I find myself coming back to it very often to play it the whole way through.

The band went ahead and released the whole EP for pay-what-you-like download via bandcamp, with an option to buy the physical CD as well. If using other random sites frightens you for an inexplicable reason, feel free to grab my two favorite tracks below:

download:   Lost Languages
download:   Astronaut

Sure, four tracks cannot guarantee a lock for a great band, but I will definitely be keeping my ear open to what these guys will come out with in the future.

2009 Wrap Up

So The Audiobahn had a quiet latter half of 2009, but was a more successful endeavor overall than most New Year's Resolutions that I make, updating (semi-)regularly through the first half of the year. Part of me wants to make saving this from disrepair a likewise resolution for 2010, on a less rigorous but hopefully more reliable schedule. We'll see! In the meantime, enjoy my musings on 2009.

Favorite Live Shows of 2009
05. Wilco at LeLacheur Park, Lowell, MA
04. Jason Anderson & The Best at TT the Bear's, Cambridge, MA
03. Harvey Danger at Harper's Ferry, Allston, MA
02. The Flaming Lips at Bank of America Pavilion, Boston, MA
01. Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall, Portland, ME

Most-listened to Artists of 2009 (via last.fm)
10. Peter Broderick
09. The Wooden Sky
08. Atlas Sound
07. Grizzly Bear
06. Graham Coxon
05. Deerhunter
04. School of Seven Bells
03. Do Make Say Think
02. The Dodos
01. Neil Young

Best Tracks of 2009
10. Caledonia - "Burning the Day"
09. Stardeath and White Dwarfs - "New Heat"
08. Daniel Land and the Modern Painters - "Codeine"
07. Grizzly Bear - "Fine For Now"
06. Animal Collective - "Brother Sport"
05. Quantic & His Combo Bárbaro - "Linda Morena"
04. Wooden Shjips - "Contact"
03. Girls - "Laura"
02. Atlas Sound - "Quick Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)"
01. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Shy"

Top Albums of 2009
10. The Duckworth Lewis Method - The Duckworth Lewis Method
09. Do Make Say Think - Other Truths
08. Fanfarlo - Reservoir
07. Caledonia - We Are America
06. The Love Language - The Love Language
05. Quantic & His Combo Bárbaro - Tradition in Transition
04. Brothers of End - The End
03. Girls - Album
02. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar
01. Atlas Sound - Logos

download:   My 10 Best Tracks of 2009
(please pardon the skip in "Codeine" my disc is scratched, unfortunately)

A few notes: 2009 was the year that I found my diverse affinity for americana rock a la classics like Neil Young or contemporaries like The Wooden Sky, but also jumped to the other end of the spectrum in shimmery electronic music of bands like Atlas Sound/Deerhunter and A Sunny Day in Glasgow. Quantic even took me by surprise with a mind-bending album combining latin jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop. Despite being one the most anticipated albums by one of my favorite artists, Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest didn't make my year end cut-- too much inconsistency throughout for me to really put it up there, compared to more consistent releases. Some of my favorites from '08 even kept with me throughout '09 as well, notably School of Seven Bells and The Dodos.

Anyway, there is much to look forward to in 2010, particularly Owen Pallet, Spoon, Ted Leo, and Midlake.

New Music Tuesday: Grizzly Bear

It's no easy task to finally get to hear and review one of my most anticipated albums of the year (second only to Midlake's upcoming LP), but that just makes it all the more interesting, don't you think? Anyway, anybody who has so much as dipped their toe in the indie blogosphere (as much as I hate the word) knows that the two records prematurely vying for "album of the year" are Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, and this, Grizzly Bear's latest offering, Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest [Warp, 2009]


The main thing to know about Grizzly Bear, is that their music is very atmospheric-- I once told a friend that Grizzly Bear know how to utilize silence better than any other rock band in modern music. That was most certainly true about their 2006 masterpiece, Yellow House, and certainly holds up here, though to a lesser extent. Still ever-present are the bone-chilling harmonies of Ed Droste and Dan Rossen, along with the sparse, hollow drumming of Chris Bear. The band sticks to what it is good at in terms of song structure, with tracks that plod along to a majestic build and often-epic finales. However, a lot of my favorite elements from their old records have gone missing-- piano with a sound as if it was played in the parlor of an abandoned mansion, banjo, woodwinds, and (tasteful) glitchy electronic noise. Still, I do have to give the band credit for somehow managing to use steel drums in multiple tracks and not have them suck.

So let's get straight to the songs: are they good? Yes, they are! Well, most of them, anyway. Opener "Southern Point" comes out of the gate rocking, with organ, fuzz bass, and swirling guitars galore. The band keeps the energy high with the harmony- and omnichord-laden "Two Weeks" (see the video for it here c/o Stereogum). Next, a step back in intensity with the haunting "All We Ask," which builds at the end, and carries over into my favorite track, "Fine For Now." By this point in the album, I was practically drooling.

The one thing I hear most from Grizzly Bear's detractors is that they find the band "boring," and unfortunately, I have to agree with this assessment on a few tracks of Veckatimest. As the album draws near its middle, some of the tracks start equating sparseness with boringness. "Cheerleader" and "Dory" plod along through typical song structures, never really building to anything, and never really reaching a moment of musical beauty seen in some of their more enjoyable minimal tracks (take "Colorado" from Yellow House, for example). "Ready, Able" breathes some life back into the middle chunk of the album, but it's all but sucked back out by the next two largely forgettable tracks.

Fortunately, the album closes with a trio of very excellent tracks (including Pitchfork-perfect "While You Wait for the Others"), and you're left with a desire to go back and find the subtle layers only found on multiple listens that are so essential to Grizzly Bear records. It's interesting that Veckatimest should be released in the summer, when it feels a lot like a sleepy fall or winter record, and that its rival, Merriweather Post Pavilion, dropped in January and feels like a summertime party. Both records have their merits, and rather than bash one and love the other, I'm just going to be glad that Grizzly Bear more or less lived up to their hype and that 2009 has been a pretty great year for music so far.

download:   Fine For Now
download:   Southern Point

Grizzly Bear play the Berklee Performance Center on June 3, and this kid has a 1st row 1st mezzanine ticket. I highly expect this show to be amazing, and recommend that you check them out in Boston or wherever they are playing near you!

The Friday Find: Cornershop

Everyone likes a nice retroactive Friday Find, and I am ready to start legislating more music that you should listen to now that I've finally bought a car and can stop doing research and negotiations all the time! Today I highlight a band out of central England that some of you may be familiar with: Cornershop.



Cornershop is the brainchild of Tjinder Singh—British and of Indian descent, which greatly influences Cornershop's music. Named after a reference to the stereotype in Britain that Indians and Asians owned streetcorner shops, Singh and his shifting lineup of musicians create a sound that perfectly combines the best of Eastern and Western music with seamless fusion, leaning heavily on British indie, pop, and dance from the mid-90's. Their breakout album, 1997's When I Was Born for the 7th Time, featured an eclectic mix of turntables, synthesizers, samplers, guitars, and traditional Indian instruments like the sitar, dholaki, or tambura.

If the name sounds vaguely familiar to anyone, it is probably because Cornershop scored a major hit off their previously mentioned album, thanks to Norman Cook's (aka Fatboy Slim) remix of their song "Brimful of Asha," a tribute to music (especially that of Asha Bhosle) in Indian film. The remix was very subtle, but its increased dance tendency and name recognition propelled it to the top of British and US charts. Here's the music video for the remix, which is terribly 90's and quite frankly kind of embarrassing:



Anyway, the real find—and track that I want to share—is off of their criminally underrated 2002 album Handcream for a Generation. "Spectral Mornings" is the pinnacle of their music, in my mind. It's a 14-minute opus that begins with some Indian singing and evolves into a sprawling psych jam of sitar and guitar mastery (Noel Gallagher of Oasis lends a hand for the guitar portion). I have no clue what this song is about and I could really care less!

Download:   Spectral Mornings
Download:   Brimful of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)

Apparently, Cornershop are expected to release their 6th album, Cornering the Market some time in 2009, so keep an eye out, since 7 years between albums seems to suit them just fine.

New Music Tuesday: Wooden Shjips

I'm going to keep it short on this Tuesday, since I'm running out of time and my brain still hurts from the last post, so I'd like to (probably) introduce you to a San Francisco Bay area quartet which may be the best band with an intentional typo in its name, Wooden Shjips.

Wooden Shjips - Dos [Holy Mountain, 2009]


There isn't entirely a lot to say about this group's second album proper-- and that isn't necessarily a detraction. Wooden Shjips take a modern day stoner rock approach to the heyday of Krautrock by way of Can and Neu!, with a liberal dose of late 60's psychedelia along the lines of The Doors and The Velvet Underground. Now, that is a lot of great bands to be compared to in one sentence, and by no means is Wooden Shjips even close to any of them.

Here is how an average Wooden Shjips song from Dos goes: jam on a looped riff, heavy in bass, organ, and crunchy guitar with a little tinge of blues. Then, sing some mumbled, barely decipherable lyrics for a minute or two, followed by a return to the main loop for two to eight minutes of the most distorted, delayed, and reverbed guitar solo possible.

But if everything is so predictable and repetitive, why do I find myself enjoying it so much? For one thing, guitarist Ripley Johnson's solo work is amazing. And it has to be-- with the bass and organ looping for four to eleven minutes (you have to give props to whichever of them recorded tambourine for 11 minutes straight), the vocals and guitar solos are what really make any distinction between tracks. The guitar work tends to favor noise over melody, which doesn't really matter since the band is looping a one- or two-chord short riff anyway, and for the most part, I feel like this is what keeps me interested in Wooden Shjips. That and 60's psych nostalgia.

Feeling adventurous? Down by the Sea (off Dos) 10:53
Or maybe more concise... We Ask You to Ride (off 2007's Wooden Shjips) 4:53
Hear and learn more @ their myspace

New Music Tuesday: The Decemberists

Apologies for the sparseness here lately-- I've been trying to buy a car which is a headache and a half. Let's focus on something that won't give you a headache. (Nice segue, huh?)

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love [Capitol, 2009]


So, I was aiming to get this out a week or two ago, since the album just launched on March 24 and I wanted to weigh in as this promised to be one of the most interesting and polarized releases of 2009 so far. There are fans old and new that either love it or hate it. Pitchfork bashed it on national television. Blogs have run the full gamut from "masterpiece" to "a nice idea that fell flat."

And well, I expected nothing less. When hearing about the album a few months ago, frontman Colin Meloy revealed that it was going to be a rock opera full of prog metal (essential for any rock opera) while incorporating The Decemberists' folk/sea shanty signature sound. I was intrigued, but skeptical. In 2006, The Crane Wife was released to much ballyhoo, but I was overall displeased with it, since it sort of walked a line between proggy, epic narratives and simple, catchy folk sing-a-longs. What I wanted was an album full of one or the other (since I had enjoyed their past efforts very much, and was intrigued what an epic album would bring).

Needless to say, The Hazards of Love is all kinds of epic. The opening track (discounting the Prelude) "The Hazards of Love 1" instantly brings to mind the folk-jazz guitar and bass interplay of the best 60's folk in the style of Pentangle or Fairport Convention. I had long doubted The Decemberists actual roots in folk, but as of this album, I am a believer. Of course, as soon as the track concludes, distorted guitars crunch in true 80's metal fashion. This may seem disorienting, but somehow Meloy et al. managed to pull off the 180-degree switch effortlessly.

This is the setup of the musical interplay throughout the album. With a surprisingly concise plot (once you have the aid of the lyrics sheet), the music shifts in the standard operatic/musical mode of recurring themes and reprises to accentuate moods, characters, and events. Meloy goes so far as to recruit two female vocalists to further flesh out the sound of the "opera." Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond) lends her sweet voice as Margaret, the lover of Meloy's character William. The show-stealer on the album however, is most certainly Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) in the role of the Queen, whose perfect 80's metal wails send chills down the spine. Where the album truly succeeds is in its pairing of music with emotion as the plot develops (the details of which I'll spare in the interest of seeming sane). The closing track where the lovers drown together (oops, spoiler) is truly a beautiful and moving piece of music, and Meloy and The Decemberists' ability to draw out so much emotion through a stunning amalgam of music styles is really what makes this album a success.

If you're looking to hear something totally different and feeling a little adventurous stylistically, this is definitely the album of 2009 to pick thusfar. While I think this album NEEDS to be heard as a whole, in the interests of not being shut down, I'll just share my top picks. Contact me if you want the whole shebang:

The Hazards of Love 1 (jazz-folk goodness)
The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid (highlights Shara and some of the prog-metal)
Annan Water (mostly Meloy and mandolin)

Catch The Decemberists live in Boston June 9 at the BOA Pavilion (with Robyn Hitchcock-- this show will be awesome), or next weekend April 24th at Amherst College (I'll be there!)

The Friday Find: Ocean Colour Scene

Ocean Colour Scene - Moseley Shoals [MCA, 1996]

                             [click to download]

4.5/5

OK, it's not really Friday. Sorry I've been behind, but to make up for it I'm bringing a truly wonderful album out from the annals of history. Well, 13 years ago anyway, cmon, that's old!

So, the setting: England, 1996. Oasis and blur have just utterly ripped the britpop scene wide open with 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and 1994's Parklife (respectively) and it seems as if the rest of the country couldn't care less about any other bands. Ocean Colour Scene had already had a bit of a flop in their 1992 debut and were now trying to get back in the limelight. What's a fledgling guitar- and piano-rock band to do??

The simple answer is to make an incredible well-crafted album full of more hooks-per-minute than you can imagine. With one listen, you can easily hear how vocalist Simon Fowler sings drawing upon McCartney/Lennon, Jagger, and his contemporary Noel Gallagher of Oasis. It's quite a statement to compare Ocean Colour Scene to three of the biggest bands of all time, but thanks to championing from Paul Weller (of The Jam) and Gallagher himself, Ocean Colour Scene quickly rose up to iconic status in the UK with psych-tinged classic rock goodness that is Moseley Shoals.

Opening strong, "The Riverboat Song" packs a bluesy punch and shows off some of the slick guitar work of Steve Cradock (who played with Paul Weller previously) as he really brings out the old psychedelia influence of the band. The psych is at its strongest on other tracks like "You've Got It Bad" and the epic closer "Get Away." Tremelo and phase shifting across left to right (especially remarkable while listening on headphones), the light addition of psychedelia really takes Ocean Colour Scene's music to the next level on this album, as opposed to getting comfortable with arena-rock bombast akin to other big British bands (cough... Oasis).

However, OCS didn't jump to the top of the British charts and go multi-platinum (there, not here in the US) from a few great psych tunes-- where they really excelled (both musically and in terms of public appeal) was in their piano-stomping pop gems like "The Day We Caught the Trains" and "40 Past Midnight." They could even tone it down and produce some quality ballads ("The Downstream" is practically perfect, though, I really could have done without the rather forgettable "It's My Shadow"). Their ability to really craft an album full of varied styles and emotions is what makes Moseley Shoals so widely enjoyable.

In the end, it was largely due to their well-connectedness and praise from Weller and Oasis (who loved their album and invited them on tour) that propelled Ocean Colour Scene to the apex of their fame, but in the case of Moseley Shoals, it was very well-deserved success. If you like music, you will like this album (well, or at least a few tracks!)


Track pick: It's so hard to choose... I'll go with "You've Got It Bad."

The Friday Find: Byrne - Slowly and Gloriously

Byrne - Slowly and Gloriously [Rocket Girl, 2002]

[click to download]
5/5

Byrne's Slowly and Gloriously has been one of my most listened to albums (well, its an EP if you want to get technical--only 6 tracks) since the day I bought it on a whim from a Newbury Comics used bin for 50 cents. I was drawn to the eerie cover art, the fact that their band name caused mild confusion with David Byrne, song titles like "Waiting for Winter" or "Drink All Day."

This is certainly not a pop-accessible album (with the exception of "Tidal Wave," their "single"), full of melancholic piano, humble vocals, low tempos, and sparse (if not absent) drumming. Many songs tend to chug along on one-chord for their entirety. While this may sound boring, it is anything but. The atmosphere created by the music is beautiful and haunting, hopeful and devastating, other cliché paired antonyms. Fueled by the "byrnetempi," or singer/writer Patrick Byrne's self-modified electric keyboard, the album has such a unique sound it is quite difficult to really compare it to any other artist.

Opening with "Waiting for Winter," Byrne dive right into the kind of song you'd expect to hear based on the cover. Light piano, ghostly "oohs," echoes of harmonica, and eventually a simple electronic beat back Byrne singing about waiting for the winter while standing in the sun, or, looking for the bad times while still in something good--a sort of nervous apprehension that tends to reverberate through the rest of the album.

From there, the plodding "Sleeping Giant" comes in, hammering away on one chord for nearly 6 minutes, but still managing to take the music somewhere and build intensity with swirling organ, guitars, and bass (which really provides the variation from the single chord). This is my track pick for the album, by far. Byrne's vocals strike hard on the oft-repeated chorus, "if it's everything you wanted baby, you're never gonna get it all," building to a swirl of chromatic guitar that pushes the song to its climactic end, then gradually strips apart into the next track. "Greener" and "Tidal Wave" bring the focus back to acoustic guitar, and pull off lines like "the grass is always greener when it rains" or "everybody knows that when you're up, I'm down" without seeming over-the-top emotional, just brutally honest.

My other favorite track off the album, "Embers" is built on melodica and trumpet counter-melodies, while the lyrics evoke a scene in a smoke-hazed bar and the mystifying allure of a blues singer. The track builds to epic bombast, and then slowly deconstructs itself into a lone descending piano line. This paves the way to the album closer "Drink All Day," a song that features Byrne's vocals almost naked, with a barely-there electric guitar providing a base for his toast to lonely times. [A short two-minute instrumental hidden track follows later, a duet of bass clarinet and piano called "Ballad for the Wet Dog."]

The sad story behind Byrne is that in 2004, they posted a new, incredible demo on their website, promising new material to come soon, but then their domain expired sometime in '05 or '06 and there has been no official news of whatever happened to the band since (they were rather obscure to begin with, anyway).

Sometimes I feel like Slowly and Gloriously just completely synced with the person I was back when I bought it, and so it has a sense of nostalgia to me, but upon many many many repeated listens, each of these 6 amazing tracks still seem like something special to me, years later. Unless they lose their luster (something I don't anticipate happening), this album will always be perfect, to me. Give a listen and see if you agree.

New Music "Tuesday:" Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Alright! Welcome to the first real full-blown album review. I am going to try to post every Tuesday on something new (released within the last month), and then every Friday with an old find. Ideally, these will be albums, but should time be constrained I might limit to a track review, just so I am getting something out! Anyway, without further ado:

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast [Fat Possum]


4/5

Andrew Bird holds an interesting honor in my life of music-- he was the first artist where I purchased an entire album on the basis of hearing just one song. Back in 2005, I heard "Fake Palindromes" off of Pitchfork (back when they actually did constructive track reviews). What really caught my attention was how unique that song sounded-- the looping, lush violins, his distinct singing style, the odd vocabulary choices... it was something different, I thought. While The Mysterious Production of Eggs was certainly a pleasing album, what really got me hooked was his earlier forays with his project Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire: unapologetic swing revival with ripping violin solos.

So, fast forward 11 years after the Bowl of Fire debut Thrills-- which sounds like it was recorded coming out of an AM radio-- to Noble Beast. As Andrew Bird's music has progressed, it has evolved from swing to chamber pop to violin-driven indie pop to... plain pop??

Probably the most striking part of Noble Beast was how long into the album it took to really hear a violin featured. Despite downplaying what you could consider his "signature" sound, this album is surprising enjoyable as an entirely different affair. On this album, much more attention is given to percussion and the interplay of acoustic/electric guitar. His violin playing now adds a richer layer to the music, rather than being the major focus of every song. Where the changes he made in 2007's Armchair Apocrypha bored me at times, the innovation he has made this time around is much-welcomed.

Opening with the great "Oh No," the album starts off strong, with a sound very reminiscent of his previous albums. By the second track, "Masterswarm," Bird switches gears from his trademark "bah-bums" and whistling into experimentation with Latin/Flamenco-style percussion with looped finger-picked violin that surprisingly blend together very well.

By the time the album comes to "Not a Robot, but a Ghost," I realized I hadn't been imagining the fuzzed bass and distorted guitar laced throughout the first few tracks, and that Bird had really been branching out into new territory. With a beat that would sound in place on any Radiohead album, his violin floats along with vocals that seem to channel a bit of Thom Yorke as well. This track was certainly the most surprising, but also one of the most enjoyable.

From there, the album works to its close with a string of equally excellent tracks, with standouts being "Anonanimal" which features some of his best string looping/layering to date, and "Souverians," a sprawling 7-minute epic that has more musical ideas in one song than some bands can fit on a whole album.

The only real detraction from the album is the trio of "Effigy," "Tenuousness," and "Nomenclature." These three songs are all a little too similar in tempo (mostly downtempo) and feel to come right after each other. "Effigy" and "Nomenclature" aren't all too remarkable on their own, and when strung so close together I tended to lose interest during that stretch. Also a bit puzzling are the two brief instrumental interludes in the middle of the album, which don't seem to build off of the songs before them nor build into the songs that proceed them.

Overall, Noble Beast is a very enjoyable step in the always-evolving sound of Andrew Bird. This is a great album for first-time listeners (though, make sure to grab The Mysterious Production of Eggs ASAP) and should be a pleasant surprise for most long-time fans.