Noble Beast - Andrew Bird

There's something mesmeric about Andrew Bird's 2009 offering, Noble Beast. Trained as a classical violinist, and self-confessed pro-whistler, Bird began to record more popular and mainstream records as a means to capture the diverse sounds he was capable of producing.

Noble Beast offers a subtle combination of folk, indie and easy-listening. But subtle needs to be, if anything, overstated here. There's a gentleness behind Bird's skilled guitar- and violin-playing that draws in the listener and conjures up visions of plains and woods, of nature and science. Over the top rests his silky soft vocals. The comparison with Sufjan Stevens is apt. They even look similar (Stevens vs Bird... ish), but it's the careful layering of their music that really provoked the similarity.

There's also a diverse range of subject material in Bird's lyrics. There's a poeticism behind 'Tenuousness' and 'Anonanimal', coupled with verbal play; the symmetry behind album opener 'Oh No' and closer 'On Ho' requires more study, but there's a careful planning behind his work that deserves attention. My favourites perhaps remain 'Souverian' and 'The Privateers', the latter for its accessibility, urgency and sparkling chorus, the former for its dreaminess. But the stand-out lyric is almost certainly:

Fake conversations on a non-existent telephone

Like the words of a man who's spent too much

Time alone

There is, certainly, my own penchant for an exploration of loneliness at play here. But that observation of the inability of one alone to articulate effectively is brought about in such a fluid and melodious way in 'Effigy' that the contrast couldn't be starker. Beautiful and thrilling to the ear.

~~~

2009