Are You Serious - Andrew Bird

Track list:

1. Capsized
2. Roma Fade
3. Truth Lies Low
4. Puma
5. Chemical Switches
6. Left Handed Kisses
7. Are You Serious
8. Saints Preservus
9. The New Saint Jude
10. Valleys of the Young
11. Bellevue
12. Shoulder Mountain
13. Pulaski

Running time: 49 minutes
Released: 2016

What is it with my 2016 purchases all falling in to A and B? This is another that shunts overdue posts further down the list. It is the third Andrew Bird album to appear on these pages and this is my first listen to any of the tracks. I skipped one in a shuffle an evening or two ago because I was primed to do this, and because Bird didn't fit my mood at the time - I can be picky like that. However now it is his game in town. I have the "deluxe" edition with 2 bonus tracks.

One of the first things I note in the booklet as I open the physical package is a thank you to Fiona Apple, who guests on one of these tracks... very interesting! But enough of the physicalities (deluxe is overselling it), and on to the listen. It catches me off guard with a rocky opening, electrified, nice cadence. Strong start. There is a funkiness to the rhythm, the roll of the piece, that I really like, and although it becomes clear that the song lyrics are less than inspired the vocal style and the overall feel of the track keep it interesting. 

Roma Fade is more immediately recognisible as an Andrew Bird track - his distinctive staccato violin picking and whistling combination opening the track. There is a liveliness in the tempo here too, and some low-fi guitar work in the background, but here the initial star is Bird's voice. It becomes a bit lost in the other sounds as the track progresses, which is a shame but a sign of a growing and varied supporting cast of instruments rather than his performance tailing off. The track ends rather suddenly and we are pitched in to Truth Lies Low, which ... well, I can't find words to describe the odd effect here. It works, rather, but its a sort of low background hum plus voice. The dominant sounds are really hard to articulate. As the song builds it becomes a little more appreciable - the violin part coming in to give some top end. I find I like it a lot, though it touches on some sounds that make me think of cheesy lounge music or incomplete demo recordings in different places.

Andrew Bird isn't the first name that comes to mind when thinking about my favourite artists, but at the same time, his name on something makes it an instant buy from me by now. He is varied, which is one of the things I really like. The three songs so far have all felt very different in tone, and that continues to be the case with Puma, too. This is a man comfortable with several styles, rhythms and arrangements. In general this album seems to share a harder low-end sound than some others. The guitar work forming much of the structure a bit of a darker, tougher sound than the top end and influencing the overall sound of the songs more, without swamping the fiddling. It takes a while for the whistling to be broken out in full, but it is there on the intro to Chemical Switches, albeit in a slow, subdued fashion, subservient to the twang on the guitar. This track is really stripped back, acoustic only. Its the best yet - a really nice, clear melody and the right kind of feel for a Tuesday evening alone after (for the second day running) evening plans got cancelled. The song ends meekly, dropping out a little, but that's the only bad point.

Now we get a duet with Apple, whose first couple of albums are amongst my all time favourites. I am not sure that I would recognise her voice here if I didn't know it was her though... it is lower, older (no surprise some 20 years on from Tidal). Her voice here is lower than his in places, in tone if not in pitch. I find, though that the song is a little disappointing - not much to it, and I missed too many of the lyrics (that old problem) to get a sense of the point. The deficit in arrangement is shown up by what came before and what comes after.

I zoned out for a little bit, brought back around by a neat change of tempo mid-track in Saints Preservus (why the concatenation?). The pace injected is suddenly lost again and the piece turns almost classical, before the momentum is picked up again. Nicely done, and another sign of Bird's comfort across a range of performing styles. 

I am trying to find more to say but I keep falling back on one cliché or another or something I have already said. Not my finest, clearest thinking tonight I am afraid. I would be lying if I said I was as engaged by this point as I was at the commencement of the album, but at the same time I am sort-of sinking into it, losing track of my thoughts because the space Bird creates is comfortable and pleasant. I am into the bonus tracks now. There is a bit of a hint of The Leisure Society about Shoulder Mountain, which is no bad thing at all, more present in the verse than the chorus. I really like this number. Pulaski rounds us out with an Asian-ish sound to the opening, though this is quickly lost for the vocal sections it returns for an instrumental insert later and makes for an interesting tune.

Overall I think this is a pretty strong album without ever really being stellar. It felt a bit like slipping into comfortable clothes after a day dressed up for work - relaxing, reassuring and taking a weight off. Like its creator, I doubt it will ever be consciously thought of as a favourite, but it hits a large number of notes that I really appreciate. Very glad I picked it up.

The Bright Carvings - Monkey Swallows the Universe

Track list:

1. Sheffield Shanty
2. Martin
3. Jimmy Down the Well
4. The Chicken Fat Waltz
5. Down
6. You Yesterday
7. Wallow
8. 22
9. Fonz You!
10. Still
11. Beautiful Never

Running time: 37 minutes
Released: 2006

Did someone ask for twee indiepop? No? Too bad, that's up next. I suspect this album is pretty bad, though I think Monkey Swallows the Universe had some pretty catchy little tunes on the follow-up (The Casket Letters). I had that before this, and the only song here I can bring to mind before I start is less than great. Still - prejudice is bad, mmkay?

It starts far more promisingly than my introduction. A neat little guitar part and an understated vocal. It has a slightly disheveled feel to it - a late night stumbling home feel. Suitable; my clock says 00:44 though it is really a fair bit earlier than that. After 2 busy nights I had this one to myself and I have gratefully retreated into music rather than explore after dark. Weird moment when we get a bit of Paul Simon lyrics chucked into the middle of the opening song. Trying to be clever and referential falls down when it is such blatant wholesale stealing, but I rather like the overall tone this opener sets.

The slightly higher pace in the guitar line of Martin reminds me of Thea Gilmore, but the vocal isn't as good and the song bottoms out pretty early. The chorus has a nice structure but the playing is functional rather than engaging and the vocal is missing something intangible - not through lack of ability, more the wrong context. This tune fits twee, where twee is used as a tarring brush, whereas the one that follows is just plain... ugh. A trite little number that deserves no credit (indeed I saw a set at a festival once where Jimmy Down the Well was used as a stick to beat the drummer with by his new - less successful! - band). It doesn't get any better after that finishes either, as the tune that follows is all over the place.

Sheffield Shanty was clearly giving a false impression; the rest of the disc thus far is pretty much exactly what I imagined it would be. The sense I get is that the band hadn't matured to find their sound at this point, but by the time they did, they had decided to part ways. I will get to The Casket Letters later this year (I hope) and unless my memory is playing tricks on me - a common theme, I know - the quality exhibited there is much higher.

You Yesterday has something slightly more interesting about it, but it is raw and unpolished. Vocal a little too flat, chords snatched, janky, levels not quite set. Its an interesting (and quick) little diversion, and then Wallow has a much better tone to it. A sense of purpose in the playing - two different guitar tunes interweaving well - and a vocal that is more like something I want to listen to. I really like the edginess that the repeated note striking on one of the guitars gives and the snatchy, speedy little hook. Best thing on the disc so far, although that isn't saying too much.

After a quick break to rinse out my ears (ew!) I set about 22, the little acoustic riff and glockenspiel combination falls flat for me as it starts, and the fuller sound of the mature track does nothing to win me back. It isn't that the song is bad, it just fails to be compelling, doesn't offer anything to arrest the ear and demand attention. The growth of the track, strings and other arrangement added, could be really nice in another context, but it lost me early. That goes much for the punchier Fonz You! too. It feels like music composed for a less than serious montage on TV or something. Maybe someone riding a bike, but unable to go in a straight line or stay upright. There's some whistling though, which is the first time I recall hearing that as part of the music (rather than a crowd reaction) outside of Andrew Bird records.

Final two tracks. Still is frustrating almost immediately, it has elements I really like in the vocal and some of the long extended, modulated notes of the melody, but the two do not sound like they are working together to me. The same sense persists through the song, which really only comprises those two things... and that only serves to make the frustration more acute. I think on balance I forgive it, but only just. The final track is the longest of them, at 6 minutes. It is sombre by comparison, whilst keeping the voice plus guitar limit. I get the sense they were trying to ape someone else here but I cannot place whom. It seems, too, that the 6 minutes is a lie as the song fades out after 2 and a half.  The stupid hidden track arrives a minute later and surprises with a male singing voice, and not a great one at that. The lyrics are amusing enough I guess, but the butchering of them is painful to behold.

Yes, this was pretty weak; not quite a complete write off but near to it; they got better, though.

Break it Yourself - Andrew Bird

Track list:

1. Desperation Breeds
2. Polynation
3. Danse Carribe
4. Give It Away
5. Eyeoneye
6. Lazy Projector
7. Near Death Expereince Expereince
8. Things Behind The Barn
9. Lusitania
10. Oprheo Looks Back
11. Sifters
12. Fatal Shore
13. Hole In The Ocean Floor
14. Belles

Running time: 60 minutes
Released: 2012

Whistling man time. That's how I think of Andrew Bird, even if it doesn't necessarily reflect in all of his works. My introduction to him was a track that had a lot of him whistling and so he is forever described.

This album starts with a jolt - a discordant noise startles me as I press play, before it settles into the sort of soft acoustic fare I would expect from Bird, his voice lying above a simple little melody. Arguably his pieces are better in the bridges, away from the vocal. There those simple ditties become more elaborate tapestries of a variety of sounds, all of which are fairly relaxing, fairly straightforward, but which mesh really well. That said, Desperation Breeds has a couple of really sharp tones and warbles which are a little too high and too acute for my taste. It is the end of a week off and I have come over all tired and despondent about going back to work tomorrow. Or rather about not having really managed to achieve enough whilst off. I completed and checked off a number of tasks, but some key goals for the week remain unmet even whilst unconsidered items got tackled. This post is me running away from any more, into something I promised myself I would find time for.

Polynation is a weird little interlude before the third track. Danse Carribe has a nice gentle flow to it, strings and guitar with drums. It has a pastoral air to begin with before sounds that I guess approximate steel drums with other instruments and lend the name pop up, along with our first instance of whistling on the record. It then morphs into a folky dance number. Overall it is a bit of a hodge-podge of a tune, but a very pleasantly diverting one. This sort of meandering number is typical of what drew me to Bird's music. This is, of course, not the first time he has appeared on this page. Bird's style is idiosyncratic, I can't really say I have anything else quite like this - wandering all over the place. Give It Away is staccato to the point of obnoxiousness for a large part of its run, but it is tailed by a lovely little tune and duet.

There is another different tone at the start of the oddly-named Eyeoneye, a more standard structure in some ways. This is the track that gives the album its name, a song about self-heartbreak? More whistles in the middle of it, but that quirk aside the form of the song could easily be any number of other artists, but the style... I can't quite decide whether I like it a lot or whether I am bored by it. It wavers between brilliance and a flatness that I can't quite describe.

My challenge for the coming week is to keep up the momentum of these listens that I have, largely, been able to establish over my holiday. Sure, I missed a couple of days but I broke the habit of mooching instead of addressing the task, albeit one I set myself and only I care about whether I continue (let alone complete). It's one thing to pick these up when I am free and haven't expended mental energy by doing a day's work; it's another to find evening time during working weeks and amidst other plans. Lazy Projector is a nice Birdian number, it has passed by whilst I mull my immediate future, and then we get another oddly titled track. I'm not sure I want to experience the Near Death Experience Experience, but here it is. It has a nice motion to it, a roll, muted strings and percussion carrying the tune effortlessly, jauntily, along. Odder sounds appear in and around this core, but the song's charm is in the basic pairing,

Ugh, mental tiredness is making finding anything interesting a chore to type. Another little interlude has sailed by before we land on Lusitania. Sinking ships indeed. I mentioned on Armchair Apocrypha that I like Andrew Bird's voice. It isn't just the timbre, its not necessarily pitch perfect delivery. Its just a homely, welcome sound. On this album he seems to be sharing vocal with a female voice, and there is a particularly nice harmony on this track. The jauntiness is back, with distinct echoes of... I guess Penguin Cafe Orchestra; Orpheo Looks Back is probably the nicest track on the album thus far. There is a real sense of... something to it. A folky edge? I dunno... hard to articulate, too tired.

Some of the sounds on Sifters are a little too flat for me, but the song itself is pleasant; when Bird isn't singing, it feels a bit pointless, lifeless. When his emotion-infused vocal is applied it gives the track that second layer that it needs to really click. This latter part of the album seems to lean toward the sparse which is a shame, not where I think the artist's strengths lie. He builds and intertwines sounds very well, and so when stripped right back to a melody and some percussion as is the case on Fatal Shore my interest suffers. This tune is also soporifically slow, relaxed, chilled... not helping! It's far too early to go to bed yet, though an early night (and a chance to read a couple of chapters before getting it) are the only other things on my to do list for this evening other than dinner.

Hole in the Ocean Floor is 8 minutes long; I really hope that it has something to it to justify the length, some heft and weight to sustain it that far. It does not start well from that point of view... too slow and sparse, but a nice enough little melody. It continues stumbling on this route for 4 minutes, at which point I start to lose interest. It's not that the tune is unpleasant, it's just a bit of a wander - which allows my mind to do the same. At which point it loses my attention and offers little by way of an attempt to draw me back.

The final track is humourously named "Belles" as it is all chimes. It reminds me a little of Sigur Rós for some reason - particularly warm winter scenes from the film Heima. The chiming lasts a couple of minutes then departs, without ever amounting to more. It leaves a strange silence - they felt like they should have been building to something, or at least fading out a bit more gently. I am left feeling less enthused than I expected to be before I began... I put that down to my state of mind rather than any real fault in the music.

Big Box of John Lee Hooker (Disc 4) - John Lee Hooker

Track list:

1. She Was in Chicago
2. Goin' On Highway 51
3. I Love You Honey
4. Boogie Woogie
5. Boogie Chillen No. 2
6. Drifting from Door to Door
7. Every Night
8. Must I Wait Till Your Man Is Gone
9.Whistlin' and Moanin' Blues
10. I Can See You When You're Weak
11. Late Last Night
12. I Wanna Walk
13. The Numbers
14. Slim's Stomp
15. Sunny Land
16. Never Satisfied
17. I Can't Believe
18. If You Need My Lovin' Baby
19. Little Boy Blues
20. You've Taken My Woman
21. Tease Me Baby
22. Crawlin' Back Spider
23. No Friend Around

Running time: 66 minutes
Released: 2013

This one starts a little different, if only a bit muted in tone and grubbier in sound from the guitar. We are immediately in to the same style of hook that has annoyed me on the previous three discs of this set - and there are two more hours of Hooker still to come after this which compounds my feelings of discontent. Hopefully it is not representative, but I think I have heard enough by now to think it probably is.

It has been a week since I made time for the last listen. I had wanted to fit this in during the working week, as I didn't have many social evenings lined up last week. In the event though, work took over and robbed me of the energy or will to concentrate for a solid stretch to deliver a post on a disc that runs over an hour.

Goin' On Highway 51 is a little more interesting as a starting point, a tinnier guitar used more sparingly means that although there are patterns similar to that one form of riff that has annoyed me so, they aren't so constant and the structure of the piece gives you more of a rest from it. I still don't like it enough to keep but its not painful in the way the repetition was becoming elsewhere. When I Love You Honey turns out to be a piano-driven melody in addition to the foundation provided by the guitar, I feel a bit more positive again.

As I said before, long week. Working into the evenings, and 100 miles an hour during the time spent in the office. Then yesterday I nipped over to Bristol to see a couple of old friends for the day and it too turned into a long one as I didn't get home until 2am. Better than a longer drive in worse conditions this morning though!

Boogie Woogie has none of the brightness or constant gentle roll that I would expect from the title. Not because it isn't there, but because I feel that the guitar cannot provide it, much as Hooker tries. Or rather, it can but if it does then there is nothing else going on, and that just seems to me to be no way to build a track. I have said on prior discs that the tunes are better when there is more of a band in play and that is really the nub of the issue here. As good as John Lee Hooker might be at playing blues guitar, limiting the pieces to just the guitar and some rudimentary tapping percussion really shows up the over-reliance on a couple of specific patterns and forms.

Thinking about this more,  it is the rhythms specifically that repeat and that is what I find myself objecting to. The fact that is effected by hammering the same note several times in a pattern that shifts little between tracks is an annoyance but if the rhythms were more different piece to piece it would not hammer into my skull like a red hot nail each time. Having said that, it does definitely make me appreciate the tracks that don't use the same trick more. Every Night being a good example.

As I say that though track 8 starts. This has both a backing band and a less annoying rhythm but it fails to enthrall on any level. In part this is because the recording is awful, the crackle here doesn't add warmth or a sense of place, it simply obliterates the keyboard part and distorts the rest too. I then get a shock as track 9 puts John Lee Hooker up with Andrew Bird as a user of whistling - albeit only briefly. I saw that the song was titled Whistlin' and Moaning Blues but I did not expect whistles to actually be employed. Unfortunately the track is a bit dull, underwhelming.

That is less true of the song that follows. Whilst it is slow, it hangs together well, and does not fall into the traps that I have come to be wary of around Hooker's songs. I Can See You When You're Weak is a nice inclusion here, warming my view towards the current task, and I like it enough that it puts a positive spin on what comes next. Late Last Night does rely on a very similar rhythm as a lot of those tracks I have bemoaned thus far but crucially it manages to put more into the guitar part so that rather than rote repetition there is a bit more craft and guile about it and I come away happy with it. Shockingly I then find myself keeping three in a row as the next track is a decent, if short, ditty too.

Numbers takes us back into don't want to be here territory though, and highlights another point about the repetition that speaks to why it bugs me so much - it's not just with the rhythm and the playing. These songs often have a very very similar vocal pattern too and overlaying two components with so little variance makes it feel much more like the same tune with different words each time, and after 70 plus tracks of JLH that is simply getting a bit too much for me now. Part of me is hoping to get a second listen in today, but if that is going to happen then it will definitely be playing with the order of things because I can't take 2 solid hours of blues from the same man in 24 hours!

The current track is called "Never Satisfied" and I feel like that applies to me listening to this late, great legend's work. Even when it is interesting I feel like it is tainted by the limitations of when it is not. I suppose, really, that I am not really evaluating this in the best way. I am complaining about similarities in the music and "same song, different words" in a context where I cannot really concentrate and take in the quality or otherwise of those words. Having said that, I do not consider it likely that I would listen in depth to the words of these songs in future even were I to keep them and it bears mentioning that if one aspect of what you are listening to is not very enjoyable (to put it mildly) then it is likely to detract from the overall experience. Thus whilst I am definitely not being fair to Hooker's songwriting ability, I feel happy with the decisions that I am making on the basis of his composition.

It is always a pleasant surprise when these listens where most of the disc douses my interest throw up little gems of surprise. You've Taken My Woman snaps me out of the self justification with a really fun little number, again full band to add the uplift it seems Hooker needs to go from interminable to enjoyable. There are still tracks to go at this point, but this really is the highlight, and probably the best point to consider this post closed. For all my cynicism there really is some genius here.

Ballad of the Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Track List:

1. Deus Ibi Est
2. Black Mountain
3. The False Husband
4. Ballad Of The Broken Seas
5. Revolver
6. Ramblin' Man
7. (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?
8. Saturday's Gone
9. It's Hard To Kill A Bad Thing
10. Honey Child What Can I Do?
11. Dusty Wreath
12. The Circus Is Leaving Town

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 2006

So from an oddball to an odd couple. I cannot for the life of me think why I first picked up music by Campbell and Lanegan, neither of whom were on my radar in their other guises before I did so. However I seem to recall fond memories of their chalk and cheese duetting, with some stand out songs (albeit maybe not on this album). This is also, I think, the 100th listen of the project. Go me.

Lanegan is gravel-like, Campbell a waif. Him in aggressive rock, her twee indie-pop. This has no right to work - pretty much what all the reviews said. Yet somehow whatever weird fate drew them together turned up trumps. Right away the contrast works. The music is fairly drab to start with, but the real versus the ethereal, dark versus light, of the two voices sets things apart as intriguing and very listenable. The first two songs, at least, are just as dull lyrically as they are musically, and the second drops Lanegan as a vocalist - which happens a fair bit on their collaborations considering he gets equal billing. Without the two singers contrasting each other Black Mountain really has little to recommend it.

The double act is restored for The False Husband, which takes the stark difference further, but accompanying Lanegan with dark, empty brooding notes, and Campbell with a friendlier melody. It is hauntingly brilliant in its simplicity, with her bits being really enthralling... and then they overlay and it is almost perfect. with 3 or 4 different strands to follow you end up getting lost and wondering at the tangle. It has been a sparse week for me and I should have got to this sooner, except that I have been recaptured by Arrested Development and have prioritised my full re-watch of that series (minus the online-only fourth season). As much as I am enjoying that, I regret not having done this one last night when I was a bit more awake and - in truth - quite antsy for something more active to do. It would have both calmed those thoughts and satisfied the itch. The title track is achingly melancholic - I could see it overlaying end credits as the devastation of a tragedy is revealed.

Revolver continues the cinematic theme, this stark tune, with its echoes of westerns, could likewise be accompanying something on screen - except for the vocal, a true duet, which detracts from that angle a bit. Here our singers are paired but it does not work quite as well as some of the call-response or different vocal pieces. Example - the cover of Ramblin' Man, with Lanegan carrying the song, and Campbell husky underneath his main verse. Oh, and hey... Andrew Bird is not the only whistler. It is just a pity that some of the composition and playing is not a bit more daring. There is a fair amount of dull music here, saved noticeably by the song. I guess this was a conscious decision to not overbear the duet with anything that would detract from it but I just feel it represents a bit of a lost opportunity to do something really special not just a good curio.

Occasionally the tunes do elevate above the humdrum, but not often enough. Saturday's Gone has a much lighter touch, and whilst it remains a very simple piece it feels as though there is a degree more sophistication about the song. Unfortunately it is another with no Lanegan, and the novelty of the lighter touch wears off after 2 1/2 minutes as the dull repetition of the rhythm gets to me. This is a relatively long track at 4 1/2 minutes plus and it definitely starts to drag well before the end. The album is a curious whole for sure. Duets, solo songs, and now an instrumental; when the music has been the weakest part of the disc so far, an instrumental is definitely something it did not need. Oh, it is a pleasant enough piece, in a really bland and inoffensive way and if I heard it whilst out and about I would not mind it. Here, though, it is as welcome as a hole in the head - after all it is a track where our stars are not bouncing off each other. I have a feeling that the follow up, Sunday at Devil Dirt was a better album than this one is. It could be my memory playing tricks again by I hear strains of songs with more urgency, more craft put into the music, in my mind when I call it forth. Ballad of the Broken Seas is, overall, a little too twee and a little too laid back to really shine despite the obvious chemistry between the pair. Nothing gets above walking pace, nothing gets in your face and nothing really embraces the sedation to enhance it. It gets caught in no man's land - interesting, but not as good as it could be, and prone to dropping the interest for idle absent-mindedness.

The tracks with both vocalists are just better, and the more prominent Lanegan is the better. I like his deep, dry voiced delivery and it is a better counterpoint to the gentle strumming that is all most of the music amounts to than Campbell's softer distant trilling. The high points of their interaction make it a worthwhile listen, even if I have culled a full third of it after this. The collaboration promises much, delivers on a little of it, and (I hope - since I have more to come in future) holds some back for later arrivals. It is no less conceptually odd a pairing after listening to them, though - however well their voices link up.

Aw C'mon - Lambchop

Track list:

1. Being Tyler   
2. Four Pounds in Two Days
3. Steve McQueen
4. The Lone Official
5. Something's Going On
6. Nothing but a Blur From a Bullet Train
7. Each Time I Bring It Up It Seems to Bring You Down
8. Timothy B. Schmidt
9. Women Help to Create the Kind of Men They Despise
10. I Hate Candy
11. I Haven't Heard a Word I've Said
12. Action Figure

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2004

Following the largesse of Christmas (way down on previous years; very little alcohol because I was driving home at the end of each day; not over-stuffed with food) I have split out the double album into its constituent parts. No You C'mon will appear much later. I fell in love with Lambchop's alt-country sound with Is A Woman, but recall being less than impressed with either part of this as a follow-up release. I remember virtually none of it, to be frank, and whilst I must have heard plenty of the songs here on random play over the last decade I am drawing a substantial blank on anything past that initial opinion. So this could be interesting.

The opening is different from what I would expect, a lot more orchestral. I like it - strong melody with a busy and well constructed general sound to back it up. Only... well, I keep waiting for it to grow, change and flourish. Whilst it does change, it feels too little too late, or in the wrong direction. It is a nice piece, but it disappoints through inhibition - a failure to go on to the grand things the opening lines hinted at. Ah well. It is an instrumental piece, and we do not get to hear Wagner's voice until track two. This is a short number, which works really well. It has an old movie score feel to it, and is gone before you know it whilst leaving a good impression. More songs should do that: impress a strong image on the listener and leave it with them rather than drawing it out, diluting the effect.

Lambchop are pretty recognisable through tempo as much as anything, a gentle sway, a hint of swagger in the cool of the vocal and separation between the melodies and the main structure of the songs. It is the vocal that really sells them for me, though. The strains and refrains are nice and all, but there is something about the delivery of their words that sticks with me and warms the cockles of my soul a little. Of course. With this project no sooner have I typed a paragraph based on the songs to date, the next one starts and blows my words out of the water. The Lone Official sounds nothing like what I expect from Lambchop and has very little in common with the attributes I just listed as their identifiers. I like that. That sense of surprise, that constantly having my opinions and thoughts challenged and changed. That seems to be the primary joy in a lot of these listens, quite apart from actually taking the time to try to appreciate what I have. That said, I do not like the tune much. It is another instrumental, a bit faster, but with a dull structure and the same repetition and failure to evolve as was evident in Being Tyler, so I am grateful when the vocals come back with Something's Going On.

I glance at the track list, and find we are entering a zone of interesting titles after this song which, whilst lyrically very boring, does return to the exquisitely crafted musical space that originally sold me on Lambchop. Soft strings, percussive guitar, laid back gravel voice - they add up to a comfort sound. I find myself surprised that I do not listen to them more, and have not picked up any releases since Aw C'mon/No You C'mon. Maybe I should remedy that but there seem to have been quite a number...

I think maybe some  of the reason is that the bits I like are the bits that tend to the samey. This runs counter to my normal self-image of my musical consumption, but as I age and examine what I like and why, a sense of familiarity is definitely one of the traits I now find endearing. I guess there is at least a grain of truth to the idea that you fix your musical tastes somewhere in your 20s - ancient history now; I have never liked that idea, but it is certainly true that I find less new stuff now that I used to. That idea saddens me.

Meanwhile Kurt has continued serenading in his distinctive style, the strings have continued somewhere over his shoulder and guitars and drums encircle him loosely and time has passed agreeably. The tracks whistle by - and not in an Andrew Bird kind of way - as most are fairly short and sweet. That, too, is a nice touch that distinguishes it a little bit from Is A Woman, where longer tunes lent a different overall vibe. My inclination is to say that album is better than this one, but at this point it would be entirely based on memory and assumed familiarity; certainly it is fair to say that I appreciate the differences, even whilst liking this most based on some of that which is the same. Another difference here is the blend of instrumental pieces amongst the songs. Some work better than others, but it is a good way of changing up, breaking the mood and preventing every track blurring together.

Blurring together... hah. The second time I have been immediately contradicted by the experience. I have just somehow lost 1-3 tracks in a blur as my mind went elsewhere for a while and now the disc is almost done. I do not begrudge it that though, for though it is certainly not a quality that one would actively look for, the fact that nothing bad jumped out to break the reverie I found myself in at least means that a consistent level was maintained. I am thinking though that blurring is probably one of the reasons that I have not listened more. To contrast, I have been listening to Fiona Apple's early albums in the car over Christmas and there is no way those songs blur at all. Two albums of superb songs with a strong voice and distinct characteristics, both Tidal and When the Pawn... are discs that I return to time and again because they offer something more than just the familiarity that is the biggest draw here.

I have, in the end, decided to pick up some more Lambchop releases, but I left others based on reviews of the same sameness that I have identified as liking here. The problem with sameness is that it is OK within an album, but I do not need it across albums. Sameness is a reason to stick, not to twist. I hope the purchases will justify themselves, but if not they will likely slot in to a nice comfortable place to blur into what I have just been through.

Armchair Apocrypha - Andrew Bird

Track list:

1. Fiery Crash
2. Imitosis
3. Plasticities
4. Heretics
5. Armchairs
6. Darkmatter
7. Simple X
8. The Supine
9. Cataracts
10. Scythian Empires
11. Spare-Ohs
12. Yawny At The Apocalypse

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2007

I forget what put me on to Andrew Bird, but I remember which track it was that gave me my entry point: a freely downloaded version of The Trees Were Mistaken from LastFM - not that it is free anymore. I was struck by something - possibly the whistling - and immediately bought more of his material, though not all of it. I follow his releases still, but I listen less often than I should, which is why I do not really know what to expect from this disc.

It has quite a start, a repeated guitar chord for 15-20 seconds. OK, expectations were all over the place, but I am fairly confident this was not how I thought it would open. Live and learn. Bird's vocal style is a lilting one and when his voice joins in it is definitely moving towards ground I could peg as his were I catching a random listen of the track. In fact the first instance of whistling would probably have given it away first but still. I would not put Fiery Crash up there as a song but I also do not think it will be representative of the album - and I am immediately validated on that point when Imitosis brings a very different arrangement and style, softer and more rounded somehow. It gives his song more room to breathe, making the vocal the star of the show.

It has been another slow week for me on this project; its a busy time. Since the last effort - a one-tracker at that! - on Tuesday I have neglected this for one evening, but otherwise been too occupied to find time. It is now Sunday evening, after a couple of solid days of roleplaying, on the back of a Christmas party. Thursday was the night I took off, and that was because I was so darn tired I could only collapse and watch bad football on the TV all evening. I am hoping that Andrew Bird will ease me into a relaxed state to get a good nights rest, because I bloody well need it. Most of his material that I have does have a fairly easy pace to it so the hope is there. This album thus far has a bit of a brasher sound than I would generally associate with Bird, a touch more prominence for the electric guitars, but that could be misremembering his other material as much as anything else.

I find Bird a good singer. Tonally his voice appeals, the up and down style fits nicely with the tunes and I feel his music is coming across most strongly when the song is central. I say that, but I am not picking up on lyrics here again so the song is not really central to my enjoyment. My mental state is not configured for that level of attention, and I have mentioned before that picking out the artists words when I am trying to write my own is unfortunately difficult and does not seem to occur naturally. The delivery though, the swells and falls, the roll, the pauses and the emotion it carries, that does come across nicely. Dramatic at times, I mostly get a sense of warmth from his singing and a sense that because I am not following the songs I am missing out. A pity, that.

Whistles. How many artists use whistling? I cannot think of any more off the top of my head though there must be plenty; for Andrew Bird, I would call it a signature of sorts. Darkmatter starts with a whistled intro, the third or fourth time this type of human-produced sound has been employed that I have noticed, but the most prominent by far. After the intro it does not appear again until the denouement, but it leaves a mark on the track. I am surprised at the relative rarity of the technique, if only because I often find myself whistling along to tunes when I am listening in private. I would never submit anyone else to the horror of my attempts at accompaniment but there is something strangely satisfying about singing or whistling along with a favourite song. Not something I find myself doing now (or for other posts here) because - again - of the attention it requires that takes away from the exercise. I guess the big test for that will come up when I start hitting more familiar material - the stuff that always has me badly belting out something in approximation of tune and time - but I don't see it happening.

I realise I have not written too much specific content about the tracks here - this post appears to have taken a more general form, speaking to the artist, their techniques, and a load of irrelevant stuff about me. So be it. Somehow I am three quarters through the disc already, and it has been a pleasant path that my ears have been travelling. Most of the early brashness has faded, the tracks taking on a more acoustic nature and to my taste this is an improvement. Scythian Empires was the one tune that I thought I would really recognise when I looked at the track list, however now I reach it, the vocal is not quite what I recalled. The general pattern of the track is as remembered but the vocal is much softer, much less strained, the whistles are back. There is a constant loop provided by some plucked instrumentation I cannot fathom which gives the structure to a song which is somewhat lacking in the lyrical department (in terms of how many there actually are, again I lost the track of them). It is suddenly over without ever quite taking off. Memory, lose 10 points.

There have been no bad songs here; some better than others, certainly, and I was not 100% taken with Fiery Crash, but I think that Spare-Ohs is probably my pick of the bunch, even as it re-electrifies. The combination of the harmonious vocal (a female voice appears in company), the whistles and a tune that made me smile just works. I am at a loss at this point to communicate why but it clicks in a way that the other tunes here did not quite manage - like brining in the best bits from across the disc into one place. Of course, I say no bad songs; there is the closer which is garbage - it is an atmospheric piece that just manages to be actively unpleasant somehow. I am going to get rid of it so I have a nicer end in future, assuming I ever deign to listing to Armchair Apocrypha as an album again.

Overall I was entertained and uplifted by this one. Now off to bed to see about the relaxed...