What Are You Listening To?

[SteveO]

I have had Andrew Bird from Chicago on my listening radar for awhile and with the release of his new album Break It Yourself I thought I would go back seven years and listen to his acclaimed album - The Mysterious Production of Eggs. This artist is very talented to say the least. The album is a celebration of various sounds from blues to folk to avant garde to jazz ! Bird has a distinctive voice that is interesting to listen to. The personnel on this album is listed as "Andrew Bird - production" so he has a hand in the music in all aspects ! I have listened to this album once and will go back to it again then! Then I'll listen to his 2012 release as reviewed on MD by Music Head.


OFFICIAL REVIEW from STYLUS Magazine 2005

Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Righteous Babe records
2005
B+

Andrew Bird’s come a long way since the self-conscious experimentation of his first albums that saw the songwriter winding his way through twentieth-century music. The type of artist that feels uncomfortably comfortable in too many genres to name, the knock on Bird has always been that while he’s obviously a savant—he may never be exactly a genius. Bird has always been able to pull out a song that fits a certain mood pitch-perfect. But a mimic, even the best one, is still just a mimic. All of that changed on Weather Systems, wherein he settled in and began to write songs that meshed and interwove with one another. An album, rather than a collection of songs, it seemed that Bird was on the verge of creating something exceptional. Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs just might be it.
One of the more obvious reference points to Bird is Jim O’Rourke. Talented at nearly everything that he touches, Bird wants to indulge in so many different things that it’s hard to bear down and focus on creating something that coheres into a singular and unified statement. In fact, it might be better to regard Bird’s work as more like collections of EPs brought together for release. Great EPs, mind you.
Starting with the smooth acoustic guitar and lightly tapped drums of “Sovay,” Bird sets the mood that will pervade the record’s length: a sort of laid-back ease that rarely shows much of what it is doing to the casual ear, but one that rewards the attentive one. All the better to hear the innovation in the band’s sound to vocal multi-tracking and Bird’s first forays into wholly guitar-led pop music.
That guitar is usually acoustic and finger-picked, forcefully put in the front of the mix, eagerly showcasing Bird’s skills.