Utne Reader Music Reviews: March-April 2009

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Pop Transcendence
Noble Beast by Andrew Bird (Fat Possum)

Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird aims squarely at the pleasure center of the bookish indie set. His several acclaimed albums of postmodern chamber pop highlight his nimble playing and the warm electronics of his frequent collaborator, the drummer and producer Martin Dosh.

Only a team as visionary as Bird and Dosh would strive to fix what isn’t broken and transcend this winning formula, as they have with Noble Beast, where suitelike song structures, instrumental interludes, and audacious lyrical constructions build and soar but never topple into excess.

“Masterswarm” begins with a minor-key acoustic prelude to a joyously orchestrated tango of violin flourishes and handclaps. Bird’s whistling and tremolo guitar splice the mood of Strictly Ballroom with that of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The arrangement employs addition, then subtraction, as the song’s instrumentation is gradually pared away until only the crushed bits of Dosh’s rhythm loop remain.

Indeed, Noble Beast’s most successful moments are its most percussive and experimental, evenly blending Bird’s meticulous performances and Dosh’s manipulated grooves. Lugubrious pitch-shifted drums lumber across “Souverian”; the canter and shuffle of “Not a Robot, but a Ghost” ultimately careens into a spooky, swirling meltdown of queasy violin and bowed bass.

Bird’s favorite instrument is probably the English language itself. He’s still unable to resist a geeky portmanteau (“Anonanimal”), a smirking pun (“Fitz & Dizzyspells”), even the occasional palindrome. But we should be grateful he’s transcending pop clichés. You can get away with plenty of too-clever-by-half lyrical stunts if they’re buttressed by such brilliant arrangements and beguiling melodies. —Jake Mohan

Clinging to Mope
Trails of the Lonely (Parts I & III) by the Lost Brothers (Bird Dog)

The heart of the Lost Brothers is two voices and two acoustic guitars charting a wholesome path through often not-so-wholesome themes of heartache—forsaking true love to “try every toy on the shelf,” mourning the murder of a beloved prostitute, begging forgiveness from an unconvinced sweetheart. “Fallen,” a hit and
a pleasure, is an egg-on-my-face lament set to a languorous swing beat with a piano chirping somewhere in the room and a cello walking up and down the chorus. The lyrics feel familiar, almost bland sometimes, but there’s a rich, ruddy ore buried in these songs that makes them novel and profound. —Ty Otis

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