Indie Album Reviews: Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs

[Entity]

Diablo:

Don't know if you'd prefer to have a separate thread for each review, so feel free to convert this to a "general" Indie album reviews thread if you'd like. That being said, this album is too unknown and too good to not mention to as many people as possible.

To begin: the album cover.



It's an unimportant detail for most, but is very fitting with the themes and general musicality of the album. Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs is one of the most ethereal albums in my collection; small details spread out throughout the album all contribute to this general sense. The lyrics are generally nonsensical, and yet, given the surrounding instrumentation, strangely fitting -- this excerpt from the song "Masterfade":

[ QUOTE ]
I coulda played Mah Jongg
but it just takes too long
and I just can't remember
which way the east wind blows does it matter?
If we're all matter
what's it matter does it matter
if we're all matter when we're done?
when the sky is full of zeros and ones
I saw you standing all alone in the electrostatic rain
I thought at last I'd found a situation you can't explain
with GPS you know it's all just a matter of degrees your
happiness won't find you underneath that canopy of trees

[/ QUOTE ]

Andrew Bird, formerly of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, is a classically trained violinist, but seems heavily influenced by a folk/gypsy sound. It's not uncommon to hear whistling, glockenspiel, violin, and instruments which sound quite a bit like the musical saw, on most of the tracks. The end effect of this is an airy, floating quality, which is complemented by Bird's unique vocals.

Like most other albums that I truly love, it's very difficult for me to name anyone -- or anything -- that this album sounds like. I can generally say that if you like Sufjan Stephens, Rufus Wainwright, or Sigur Ros, you'll probably like AB&tMPoE, but that isn't to say that they sound very familiar (obviously, given the disparate musicians listed, they don't). They fit into the same genre and generally I've found that people who like one like the other.

Pitchfork Media (say what you will) gave the album a very good review, scoring 8.3/10. I'd give it a slightly higher score; while not perfect, it's one of my favorite albums of the past few years. For me, it's a 9.25/10.

Pitchforkmedia Review.

Amazon.com link (5 star average reviews; 33 reviews).

Rob

[El Diablo]

All,

I think separate threads for reviews are cool. I figure on slightly more mainstream stuff we can get multiple people doing reviews in a thread.

Then when someone does an indie overview thread, we can just link to all the individual detailed review threads from there.

[Dominic]

Entity,

I've got this album...I have to admit that after playing it incessantly the first few weeks I haven't listened to it in over a year.

There's some interesting stuff going on with Bird, but it never failed to annoy me as much as it pleased me, for some reason. I can't think of another album or book or movie that I am so 50/50 on...some of it I hate and some of it I love.

[tdarko]

Entity,

Andrew Bird is excellent and this album is very good. I like it that you reviewed this because I don't believe I have ever seen him mentioned/talked about on these forums which is surprising considering how much we talk about music and bands and how awesome he is.

You probably know this but he has a new album coming out March, 20th.

[Spellmen]

I saw him last Fall 05 in Pittsburgh, though his show isn't very high energy (due to his type of music and not his performance) it was unreal. It was just him and a guy who played drums and messed around with a keyboard.

It was easily the best performance I've ever seen. It's amazing to see him start out something on guitar, loop it or whatever, and then quickly switch to violin. I particularly enjoyed quick switches from playing the violin normally, to plucking it like a mandolin.

His control over his whistle is outrageous and he is a very down to earth guy, my friends and I got to talk to him for a little while after the show since it was pretty small. He has a very "eccentric genius" or "mad scientist" type of personality in my opinion