Indie
Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha
***1/2
For those of you unfamiliar with violinist-cum-alt-rocker Andrew Bird (and that could be a significant chunk of you), a quick peek at a list of musicians with whom he’s toured and recorded can give you a taste of what to expect: My Morning Jacket, Magnetic Fields, Lambchop, Will Oldham, Ani DiFranco. Yes, this is art rock for art rock’s sake, and it’s also pretty darn tasty.
Bird’s seventh CD—his first release for Fat Possum Records—showcases his unique violin talents and taste for quirky sound effects (whistling, birds chirping) that lighten these otherwise dense, heavily textured songs. Minneapolis folkie Haley Bonar chips in ethereal backing vocals on four tunes, the best of which is the opening track, “Fiery Crash,” in which Bird envisions a worst-case scenario to calm his fears of flying.
He drops a slight Latin beat on “Imitosis,” channeling Santana after a long night of Cuba Libres, and a cool jazzy feel carries “Plasticities” to a satisfying conclusion. Bird’s relaxed, understated vocals often slip into falsetto and fade into the rich orchestration of his songs, but always rush back with lyrics that leave you reaching for the liner notes to figure out what he was saying between all that whistling.