The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.andrewbird.net/

Ever since Elliott Smith killed himself, there's been sort of a void of songwriting genius in my music catalog. While there are a lot of really good songwriters out there, there's just something about the music of Elliott Smith that separates it from everything else out there for me. Nick Drake had it. To me, M. Ward has it. There are probably a handful of others that I know nothing about that have it to. Occasionally, however, I find out about these others. Bob Boilen (NPR's All Songs Considered) tuned me into M. Ward some time ago and now he's struck a chord with me again with Andrew Bird. On one of Bob's recent shows, he was reviewing the musical lineups at the Austin music festival known affectionately as SxSW. Bob was leading a discussion between several music aficionados and he asked if anyone had seen Andrew Bird perform at the festival. Once the excited buzz of talking over each other subsided, they all started talking about his exceptional whistling. It was then that Bob wound up playing a snippet of one of Bird's songs. That's all it took for me. Almost immediately I went to iTunes and listened to Bird's newest release Armchair Apocrypha. It didn't take me long to recognize the genius at hand. It also didn't take me long to find his previous release, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Five minutes later I'm clicking the BUY button for that one after only a cursory listen.

Andrew Bird does more than whistle though. He's a Suzuki trained violinist, glockenspiel player, and singer, who happens to write great songs that fall into the rock and roll category. I know. It sounds like more of my far fetched music crap. Despite what you're thinking, this music is fairly mainstream; well, except for the fact that it's too smart for mainstream audiences. When I first bought these two releases, like I said literally within minutes of each other, I listened to the most recent release first. At 13 songs that average around 4 minutes each, you're in for a good solid hour. An hour later I couldn't believe the brilliance I heard. All the songs are as beautifully crafted as Elliott Smith and almost equally as personally revealing. When it opened with Fiery Crash and heard the words, a nod to mortality before you get on a plane, I knew that I was going to connect to the music of Andrew Bird. The next song was good, and so was the next, and then Heretics started and I thought I was listening to Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks all over again. Uncanny. While I tried to dwell on that for the moment, the songs just kept getting better. More intricate. More depth. All the way to the end of the CD. I'm not going to recommend buying a single song on this CD because you'll really be selling yourself short if you don't buy the whole thing. It might even be better than The Shins latest release, which at the moment I've completely forgotten about.

Then I listened to Andrew Bird's previous release, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, and I was blown away. I liked it even better. Why in the hell haven't I heard of this guy before and more importantly how much of this guy's back catalog am I now compelled to buy? I haven't been this excited about hearing a singer/songwriter since Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise release. Back off. Not that kind of excited. Seriously though, this release is equally smart and well produced as Armchair Apocrypha. It is a little more dark then Bird's latest release and if I had to compare the two I'd say that both sound relatively the same, but the tone of the latest release is significantly more upbeat.

I've now listened to both releases several times over and over and I've come to this basic conclusion: Andrew Bird really doesn't know how to write a bad song. Two CD's, 27 songs, each of them an art form unto themselves. Ask yourself why there can't be more of this smart music, but click the Buy button on both of these first.