Andrew Bird

This past weekend I visited wonderful Madison, Wisconsin, for a concert by Mr Andrew Bird. He is an absurd scarecrow of a man; the cut of his jeans suggests they are supposed to be tight, but they are baggy on him. He frenetically juggles instruments — violin (bowed and pizzicato), guitar, glockenspiel — often singing, or whistling, at the same time. While performing, he gesticulates like a third-rate Hamlet: he'll turn his extended hand over and over upon itself, or tilt his head to the side. (Unlike the bevy of third-rate Hamlets out there, though, the gestures are not affected; they seem to flow out of him along with the music itself.) His lyrics are at times maddeningly obscure, perhaps irrational. "We'll fight," he sings, "we'll fight for your music halls and dying cities". He tells us of "malarial alleys where the kittens have pleurisy", and "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone". For much of the music Bird effectively accompanies himself, recording a pattern, transmuting it, and then adding another: his is a contrapuntal mind, always considering the ins and outs of a harmonic landscape and the melody he will build upon it. The music swerves from classical etudes to Appalachian waltzes to electronica to bossa nova; at times it simply dissolves in a series of loops. It is a thinking man's music, ill-suited to those who prefer the stale and and the comforting. It can make you weep.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

Links:
Andrew Bird Official Website
MySpace Page (music samples)
Daytrotter Session (streaming, downloads)