music: andrew bird

His latest is a winner.
I like it better than Mysterious Production of Eggs.

Compared to his past work this one is a little messy, a little more basic, which for me comes as a recommendation. Bird is a little like Sufjan Stevens, pumping out streamers of perfectly formed music with such a highly polished gloss it can be blinding. I like Bird much better than Stevens because his tunes mostly escape the recording process with a faint scent of humanity still clinging to them. On Armchair Apocrypha that gossamer scent blooms into something closer to musk.

My first listen to a Bird disc usually engenders a sense of awe at the cleverness & polish. This time I had a more visceral emotional reaction, which is probably why I like it more. I'll take a song with heart over a clever one any time, and this record succeeds by yoking the cleverness to the humanity and making it work for its passage.

Check it out, it's a winner. The first 4-5 tunes are all five star, I've had them in heavy rotation all month.