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Rating: The Apocalypse, yawning...
The end of the world is happening, and for real, out there, but we, people of witty spirit, we who are elegant and refined, know that we don't have time for these trifles. We are not afraid. We are perfectly calm. Instead, we want to stay here a little longer, to enjoy those pleasures of which, if we know how to appreciate them, life is anything but stingy. To all this noise then, and the Apocalypse, or end of the world as it may be called, advancing menacingly outside our window, we respond with a blissful and mocking yawn...
Not unlike what was just described must have been the inspiring image on which Andrew Bird developed his latest album, "Armchair Apocrypha", released in March of this year with the new (for him) label Fat Possum. Andrew Bird, multi-instrumentalist (violin, guitar, glockenspiel), born in Chicago in 1973, already a prominent figure in the American alternative scene with his previous group the Bowl of Fire, tried, in this new work, a compositional key based on relaxation, both melodic and textual. The result is greater cohesion and homogeneity among the twelve tracks that make up the album, compared to previous works, the penultimate of which, "The Mysterious Production of Eggs", was released in 2005.
The opening track, "Fiery Crash", with its catchy phrasing of electric piano, amplified guitar, and drums that start with subtle rolls to become more and more demanding, is a brilliant introduction for the whole album. The second track, "Imitosis", is a reworking of "I", from the 2003 album "Weather Systems": listenable, but those who are already familiar with the originating track may be a bit perplexed by Bird's penchant for self-citation. Already in "The Mysterious Production of Eggs", there was "Skin Is, My", a reinterpretation of "Skin", also included in "Weather Systems".
With the third track, however, Bird definitively convinces us of the high value of this album. The track is titled "Plasticities": "plasticities" in the plural, but also, perhaps, "plastic cities." The first interpretation of the term refers to the changing and multifaceted character of the melody of this piece, which is shaped and set in motion, particularly in the chorus, by the magnetic electric guitar riff and Bird's voice that darts between the lines of the staff like a dolphin in and out of the waves, modulating these verses: "we'll fight we'll / we'll fight for your music halls / and dying cities / they'll fight they'll fight / for your neural walls / and plasticities / and precious territory" (we'll fight, we'll fight for your concert halls / and for the dying cities / they'll fight, they'll fight / for your neural networks / and for the plasti-cities / and for the precious territory). The lyrics throughout the album are cultured and ironic: in the case just mentioned, for example, Bird plays with the pronunciation of "we'll fight," altered by him into "whale fight," as if to say that all the fuss to have spaces to make music, orderly cities (even if made of plastic!), and increasingly performative brains, ultimately results in nothing other than a whale fight (sic!).
The most surprising track on the album is probably "Armchairs", a construction as sumptuous as a neoclassical palace, which, however, manages to remain light and dynamic for all seven minutes of its captivating duration, during which it goes through continuous changes in melody. In other tracks, like "Heretics," the excellent work of drummer Martin Dosh stands out, who in this album is also at the keyboards, as well as co-author of some of the tracks.
Exact, meticulous mixing, done at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls (Minnesota), puts every sound in the right place under Bird's singing, now assertive, now sighing and whispered, excellently supported, as in the mentioned "Fiery Crash," by the counterpoint of Haley Bonar, a very young country-pop singer from Minnesota who can already boast her own solo repertoire. Rich is the tone of guitars and electric piano and the precious insertions of the violin, the favored instrument played by Bird. The dynamic of the melodies, the warmth, and the depth of the overall sound are nonetheless credited to Dosh's Rhodes and Wurlitzer keyboards.
A separate note should be dedicated to the whistling, or whistling if you will, so beloved by Bird, and to which he has now accustomed his admirers. Bird whistles a bit everywhere on his tracks, using the lips whistle just like any other musical instrument. It can be appealing or not; sometimes, in my opinion, it seems redundant, as in "Simple X," other times it is effective, as in the intro of "Darkmatter."
A mention deserves the remarkable "Schityan Empires," in which Bird talks about obscure ancient civilizations and the horsemen of the Apocalypse, while the music "follows" the text, highlighting its pivotal points. There are two instrumentals: a refined and brief "The Supine" and another with the burden of closing this valuable work, "Yawny at the Apocalypse," where on gentle pastoral echoes, the serene and relaxed chords of Bird's violin unfold, like the awakening of a child on a fresh morning.
"Armchair Apocrypha" is a further significant work by Andrew Bird. After six studio albums, it might have seemed that his qualities as a writer of lyrics and music, as well as an extraordinary performer in his live shows, had exhausted the margin for further developments. And that, like many, he would continue to propose a tested musical formula capable of guaranteeing him the appreciation of the established audience. But no. Every now and then, impressions deceive. In the case of this album, that is certainly a pleasure.
Andrew Bird, "Armchair Apocrypha", Fat Possum, 2007
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Fiery Crash (04:12)
Turnstiles on mezzanine
Jet ways and Dramamine fiends
And x-ray machines
You were hurling through space
G-forces twisting your face
Breeding superstition
A fatal premonition
You know you got to envision
The fiery crash
Oh close your eyes and you wake up
Face stuck to a vinyl settee
Oh the line was starting to break up
Just as you were starting to say
Something apropos I don't know
Beige tiles and magazines
Lou Dobbs and the CNN team
On every monitor screen
You were caught in the crossfire
Where every human face
Has you reaching for your mace
So it's kind of an imposition
Fatal premonition
To save our lives you've got to envision
And to save all our lives you've got to envision
The fiery crash
It's just a formality
Why must I explain?
Just a nod to mortality
Before you get on a plane
Oh close your eyes and you wake up
Face stuck to a vinyl settee
Oh the line was starting to break up
What was that you were going to say?
02 Imitosis (04:01)
He's keeping busy
Yeah he's bleeding stones
With his machinations and his palindromes
It was anything but hear the voice
anything but hear the voice
It was anything but hear the voice
That says that we're all basically alone
Poor Professor Pynchon had only good intentions
When he put his Bunsen burners all away
And turning to a playground in a Petri dish
Where single cells would swing their fists
At anything that looks like easy prey
In this nature show that rages every day
It was then he heard his intuition say
We were all basically alone
And despite what all his studies had shown
That what's mistaken for closeness
Is just a case for mitosis
And why do some show no mercy
While others are painfully shy
Tell me doctor can you quantify
He just wants to know the reason, the reason why
Why do they congregate in groups of four
Scatter like a billion spores
And let the wind just carry them away?
How can kids be so mean?
Our famous doctor tried to glean
As he went home at the end of the day
In this nature show that rages every day
It was then he heard his intuition say
We were all basically alone
Despite what all his studies had shown
That what's mistaken for closeness
Is just a case of mitosis
Sure fatal doses of malcontent through osmosis
And why do some show no mercy
While others are painfully shy
Tell me doctor, can you quantify?
The reason why
03 Plasticities (04:28)
This isn't your song
This isn't your music
How can they be wrong
When by committee they choose it all?
They choose it all
You're gonna grow old
You're gonna grow cold
Bearing signs on the avenue
For your own personal Waterloo
You're bearing signs on the avenue
For your own personal Waterloo now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory
This isn't our song
This isn't even a musical
I think life is too long
To be a whale in a cubicle
Nails under your cuticle
Gonna grow old
You're gonna grow so cold
Before this song can deliver you
You're bearing signs on the avenue
You're bearing signs
For your own personal Waterloo now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory
04 Heretics (03:34)
Bored holes through our tongues
So sing a song about it
Held our breath for too long
‘Til we’re half sick about it
Tell us what we did wrong
And you can blame us for it
Turn a clamp on our thumbs
We’ll sew a doll about it
And tell us all about it
How ‘bout some credit now
Where credit is due
For the damage that we’ve done?
Wrought upon ourselves and others
With a slow and vicious gun
And although pratfalls can be fun
Encores can be fatal
And then I hear you say
"Thank god it’s fatal
Not shy
Not shy of fatal
Thank god."
Wait just a second now
It’s not all that bad
Are we not having fun?
You’re making mountains of handkerchiefs
Where the mascara always runs
So be careful when you’re done
You’re bound to get post-natal
What, did I just hear you say?
"Thank god it’s fatal."
We don’t want to hear the sound of a door
And we don’t want to read the signs that you bore
You know, the kind of sign you hang on the door
Saying, "we’ll be back"- what a crack
Now don’t you think we might have heard that before?
Bored holes through our tongues
So sing a song about it
Held our breath for too long
‘Til we’re half sick about it
Tell us what we did wrong
And you can blame us for it
Turn a clamp on our thumbs
We’ll sew a doll about it
05 Armchairs (07:03)
I dreamed you were a cosmonaut
of the space between our chairs
and I was a cartographer
of the tangles in your hair
I sighed a song that silence brings
it’s the one that everybody knows
oh everybody knows
the song that silence sings
and this was how it goes
these looms that weave apocryphal
they’re hanging from a strand
these dark and empty rooms were full
of incandescent hands
and awkward pause
a fatal flaw
time it’s a crooked bow
oh time’s a crooked bow
in time you need to learn to love
the ebb just like the flow
grab hold of your bootstraps
and pull like hell
‘till gravity feels sorry for you
and lets you go
as if you lack the proper chemicals to know
the way it felt the last time you let yourself
fall this low
time
oh time
it’s a crooked bow
time’s a crooked bow
fifty-five and three–eighths years later
at the bottom of this gigantic crater
and armchair calls to you
yeah this armchair calls to you
and it says that
some day
we’ll get back at them all
with epoxy and a pair of pliers
as ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
through the ragweed and barbed wire
you didn’t write you didn’t call
it didn’t cross your mind at all
and through the waves
the waves of a.m. squall
you couldn’t feel a thing at all
you’re fifty-five and three-eighths tall
time
06 Darkmatter (05:08)
When I was just a little boy
I threw away all of my action toys
While a I became obsessed with Operation
With hearts and minds and certain glands
You gotta learn to keep a steady hand
And thus began my morbid fascination
Tore the spines from out of all of these self-help books
Made myself a gun that not only shoots but looks
So real
It shoots through steel
With rays of dark matter
Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in your head or between your sides
And who will be the one who will decide
Its true location
And does the thought of bile that’s red and black
The thought of tongues that taste you back
Fill you with a nauseouseous sort of elation
A noose is loosed around our necks made of DNA
And every day it’s growing tighter no matter what they do or say
And you can shoot right through it with rays of dark matter
Just before they kick out the ladder
With rays of dark matter
Like something catching fire
Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in your head or between your sides
And who will be the one who will decide
Its true location
07 Simple X (03:37)
Some people wake up on Monday mornings
Barring maelstroms and red flare warnings
With no explosions and no surprises
Perform a series of exercises
Hold your fire
Take your place around an open fire
Before your neurons declare a crisis
Before your trace Serotonin rises
Before you're reading your coffee grounds
And before a pundit can make a sound
And before you're reading your list of vices
Perform the simplest exercises
So here we are at the end
The war is over
There's nothing left to defend
No cliffs of Dover
So let us put down our pens
And this concludes the test
Our minds are scattered about
From hell to breakfast
Hold your fire
Take your place around an open fire
Don't open fire
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