Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha

    I recently bought Armchair Apocrypha (2007) at a Borders store closing sale event, quite surprised that it was still there among the picked over boxes of CDs (along with Coldplay, Vida la Vida + Prospects March EP; The Chrystal Method, Divided By Night; and Devotchka, 100 Lovers--I'd say I didn't do too bad!), and have come to like it perhaps even more than Noble Beast, his most recent LP (2009). The aforementioned Andrew Bird albums are both on Fat Possum Records, whereas his previous records were self-released using a variety of different monikers. Definitely one of the great indie songwriters of our time, Andrew Bird has the capacity to write a beautiful melody, harmonize without cluttering the simplistic nature of the tune and implement his own multi-instrumentalist skills--violin, whistling (actually really cool!), and of course great vocals. He has a very pleasing voice to listen to.
    Compared to his previous albums, I believe this includes more rock elements, the drums are more present, while the entire album is much less pure folk. Even so, each song is personal and not overclouded, with sort of jazzy elements here and there (like on track five, "Armchairs"). It is hard to categorize the exact genre collision, but its needless to say that Andrew Bird has been saturated with music from an early age, starting violin with Suzuki lessons at age 4 and continuing through a classical training at Northwestern University in Chicago that also included jazz, Hungarian Gyspy music and country blues along the way (perhaps the latter would be the best descriptor). All this according to his website, very professional looking, check it out here. His first band name was Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, which was very folksy and led to this expansion into the solo realm and being added to his current record label.
    There are some absolutely fantastic musical elements throughout Armchair Apocrypha, namely track 1 "Fiery Crash", which has this golden hook on the guitar right at the start, so simple but genius progression; track 2 "Imitosis" is like a tango, with pizzicato violin done wonderfully; track 3 "Plasticities" has more great pizzicato and perhaps one of the more beautiful melodies, with the whistling coming in here and there too; track 7 "Simple X" is rhythmic and yet subtle, with the falsetto vocals Andrew Bird is known for, almost reminds me of "Not a Robot, but a Ghost" from Noble Beast; track 8 "The Supine" has a fantastic ethereal walk through a cathedral or something, like listening to a chant, at the beginning before moving into its more country blues style; track 10 "Scythian Empire" has a lo-fi guitar about half way through that is interesting amongst the twittering pizzicato and xylophone and other noises, very cool; and finally but not least track 12 "Yawny at the Apocalyspe" is just plain gorgeous with cello and violin harmonics (lightly putting your finger on the string in the position of another note produces a higher very sweet sounding pitch that is very hard to control), an instrumental track that just breathes in and out and is like listening to a songbird.
    Truly Andrew Bird is a songbird, his discography represents that so well, and I have really enjoyed coming to know his music through friends of mine introducing him to me about 2-3 years ago. You can listen to the entire album on MySpace here. Also I've included "Plasticities" under the 'Monthly Sample Tracks'. Enjoy!