Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Bird's

Back in 2005, one of my favorite albums of the year was The Mysterious Production of Eggs by Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird (violin, guitar, xylophone, and other things, as well as award-winning whistling). (I had blogged about it here.) His new album is called Armchair Apocrypha and even if it is not as brilliant as MPOE, I still have not stopped playing it for the past three weeks. The album opens with a meditation on a "Fiery Crash" that frequent flyers make prior to boarding a silver glemaing death machine--I mean a plane. But then maybe that was just me... "Imitosis," my favorite track, began life as the song "I" on Bird's 2003 album Weather Systems, here expanded, and for the better. Throughout, there is Bird's odd yet compelling and thoughtful lyrics and some of the best music you're not likely to hear on the radio. Mi hermano and I have tickets to see Bird on Boston next month and I cannot wait.

Bird appeared on Letterman last week, performing the song "Plasticities." It is presented herewith.

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