Fat Possum
Released: March 20, 2007
I am sorry that I start so many of my reviews with personal anecdotes, but there is absolutely no way I can write this without telling you this brief story. One time, I touched Andrew Bird. It was my senior year of high school, he gave a free concert at the public library, and I talked with him after the show. I touched his corduroy-blazer-clad right elbow with my left hand. It was amazing. It was sort of like Michelangelo painting in which Adam is touching the hand of God, only better because we had on much snappier outfits.
Despite my deification of said musician, let it be known that the Chicago-based Andrew Bird is a truly unusual character. He’s been a Squirrel Nut Zipper, he’s been signed to Ani DiFranco’s label, Righteous Babe, for some time. He is perennially described as a New Weird American, like Espers or Vetiver, and, when asked, tells anyone who will listen that he is a professional whistler. A.B.’s biography doesn’t even scratch the surface of the curious music he crafts. At once quirky and catchy, he has created an odd niche for himself. With his rococo arrangements and cerebral lyric topics, it would be easy to categorize him as yet another pretentious indie act, but his work is so fun that it is impossible to fault him for his use of SAT vocabulary and excessive use of his looper.
His most recent record (and first real solo work), 2005’s Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs, garnered massive critical acclaim. For good reason, too; A.B. is a conservatory-trained violinist, truly astounding whistler, and in possession of the most bizarrely compelling voice known to man.
His latest record, Armchair Apocrypha, draws on all of his previous skills, but refines them. Gone is the jumpy, unsettling quality of previous records. Here, it’s replaced by a more restrained sound. It’s a more mature record, one that is more accessible, largely because it’s a little less subtle that previous efforts. When listening to old Andrew Bird records, you have to listen closely; the beauty is in the slight intricacies he slips in here and there. Armchair Apocrypha demands less of the listener but doesn’t abandon his commitment to excellent musicianship, complex arrangements, and lyrical density.
The record opens with the strange image of “Lou Dobbs on CNN” in the excited-sounding “Fiery Crash” and only expands from there. The record just gets better and better; references to Nietzsche, upper-level biology, and Roman Catholic dogma abound, enriched by intense violining and cheerful, birdlike whistling. Unlike prior records, though, this Armchair Apocrypha never gets quite so frenetic. There’s a degree of refinement here that has previously been missing. This is not to say that there was anything sloppy about his prior efforts (anything but, really), but that A.B. has taken his craft to a height I hadn’t previously imagined.
In this, his thirty-fourth year of life, Andrew Bird has finally found the maturity that he’s been seeking throughout his years as a freak-folk/nouveau-swing/pro-whistling artist. It’s here that he truly seems to have come into his own.
Armchair Apocrypha could well be the theme song to the Book of Revelation; at any time, you can feel warranted in feeling confused. At times, there’s no sense to be made of what he’s saying. Like the seven-sealed document God will give to man to signal the pinnacle of existence, so has Andrew Bird given us the apex of his creative talent. There’s really nothing more to be said on the topic, save that I touched The Andrew Bird. I’m thinking of donating my hand to the yet-uncreated Indie Rock Museum of History as a relic. After all, without that elbow, the man would never have been able to play the glockenspiel nearly this well.
-Kirsten Schofield
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