New Music: Andrew Bird, Maju, Mt. Gigantic

Andrew Bird - Simple X (Fat Possum 2007)

Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha / Fat Possum

Thanks to Andrew Bird, we now know what it takes for a quality musician to be labeled as “Breaking” by Rolling Stone: a decade-plus career, six full-length albums (three of which came with a good amount of acclaim), a few style changes and more press than you can shake your fist at AND THEN Rolling Stone decides it’s their duty to notify you, the ignorant public, that Mr. Bird is an up-and-coming, break-out potential artist… that’s quality journalism. All right, enough RS slandering, but it’s just kind of sad because Chicago’s most darling and cherished (among the indie-rock crowd) singer/songwriter in all actuality sounds more like he is coasting into a comfortable and realized sound with his seventh LP, first for Fat Possum Records, than really breaking new ground. Gaining momentum as an auxiliary member of the retro-swinging Squirrel Nut Zippers in the mid-90s, Bird first hit the scene with an eclectic combination of New Orleans swing and Eastern-European gypsy-folk (which he was way ahead of the curve with) before changing course and letting the more quirky aspects of his sound act as a supplementary characteristic to his refined and amiable, almost adult alternative, brand of laid-back pop-rock. With the clever lyrics, sophisticated sound and just a warming vibe to 2001’s The Swimming Hour and 2003’s Weather System, Bird gained a significant amount of momentum in the indie-rock community. In my opinion, this all culminated musically and hype-ally(?) with 2005’s excellent Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs which just has this underlying quirk that’s impossible to describe but easily felt and certainly resonated with the independent music community. So now we get to the up-coming Armchair Apocrypha that has had the indie blogosphere chirping endlessly for the last month or two. Everything we’ve come to expect from the last couple of albums is here: the deadpan vocals, witty lyrics, buoyant string plucks, swirls of violin, inviting atmosphere and Bird’s inhuman whistling that easily makes Peter, Bjorn and John green with envy. But is this a good thing? Where is that surprising burst that made his prior albums so infectious? Where is the idiosyncratic whim we’ve come to love from Bird? Well it’s there, but I don’t believe it resonates as much since we’ve come to expect it. To be perfectly honest, the album kind of bores me. Not that the music has degenerated by any means, but it just seems to coast rather than bounce, and that’s not a good thing. My favorite moments come when frequent collaborator and Anticon artist Martin Dosh adds his slightly manipulated, skittering drumming and endearing keyboard melodies to the mix, “Simple X” for example, which by no coincidence is my tune of choice. Bird whistles heavenly over the shuffling beat, he sings in quick phrases and even let’s out a falsetto or two; then about half-way through, Dosh breaks into an almost Brazilian beat and Bird supplies an Oriental-leaning violin accompaniment. If there were more tracks like this, I’d be ranting and raving all over the page. The truth is though, the majority of the album is safe, comforting and predictable with Bird’s résumé in mind, which I think hurts an artist so talented and known for his ability to switch-up styles. Then again, could he really asked for a better album to breakout into the Rolling Stone-curated mainstream? I have a hard time criticizing Bird because he is such an endearing character and seemingly the quintessential “nice guy,” and as my friend relayed after she caught his recent Chicago performance: “everything he does is so awkward and it’s just so cute I want to melt in his arms.” Sadly though, Armchair Apocrypha lacks that charming awkwardness that is so essential to his reputation and music and those of us familiar with the back-catalog are left a bit unsatisfied.






Maju - Chabashira (originally Extreme 2001, reissued 2007)

Maju – Maju-3 / Extreme

Originally released in 2001, Maju-3 is not so mysteriously the third proper full-length from Japanese duo Maju (pronounced may-you). Originally formed as a solo outfit in 1997 by multi-talented producer and musician Sakana Hosomi, Maju became the outlet for his collaborations with Masaki Narita, an active session musician for both commercial work and the popular J-pop scene. Both artists began their careers as keyboardists and share a heavy pastoral influence from growing up in secluded regions of Japan but are now relocated to the neon metropolis of Tokyo, a contrast omniscient in their albums under this moniker. The duo recorded heavily in the very late 90s and early 00s releasing five albums in a three years span on Australian imprint Extreme and German ambient connoisseurs Mille Plateaux, culminating in this album of fully realized micro-house leaning ambient. Though there are very few details listed in the liner notes, the music sounds almost fully created from synthetic keyboards or at the very least, heavily processed analog instrumentation. Typically large palettes of soft, humming frequencies are used as a foundation for supporting pings, clanks and skitters that are looped with precision. This theme is presented in varying degrees from the slow moving, glacial album opener “Resonance of Forms” to the near formless bustling of severed wavelengths during “Helix.” It’s a sound descended from the great ambient zeuses Eno and Riley but brought up-to-date with the microscopic digital splicing of laptops. It’s Tokyo at 4 in the morning: walking to the comforting hum of a city built on electricity and hearing all the tiny nuances of the varying frequencies created by a million electronic hues. Not to mention an occasional sputtering frayed wire that instantly grabs your attention in such a calm, soothing drift of a sound. With the growing popularity of artists like Fennesz, Tim Hecker and the Ghostly International roster, I can see why Extreme is giving this record a second go around. Slightly before it’s time, Maju-3 has a quiet, synthetic and anonymous elegance to it, like a series of precise frequency origami or a collection of graceful tonal haiku.






Mt. Gigantic - Blessed be the Bicycle (Friends and Relatives 2007)

Mt. Gigantic – Gatherings and Gleanings / Friends and Relatives

Collective-inspired music can be fun. Lots of ideas get tossed around, the best of which are picked out and pieced together to form one song born out of the overarching idea and individual musical snippets snuggly fit-together. But what happens when no ideas get tossed out? What happens if the collective says fuck it and forces the large square peg into the circular hole? What happens when they shove the triangle peg through after that? Mt. Gigantic happens, that’s what. The Wayne Williams led Bloomington, IN collective known as Mt. Gigantic create a rambunctious noise-pop sound of harsh contrasts and tumultuous song structures. The 14-member band comes from a number of different projects and brings their influences pummeling together: the quirky indie-pop of Half-Handed Cloud, the weirdo frantic rock of Rapider Than Horse Power, the lo-fi folk of Vollmar, the goofy cuteness of Matty Pop Chart and the anti-folk of Kimya Dawson. All the backgrounds are tossed in a blender, puréed for a few minutes and poured into a steaming espresso, which gets fed to a wily forest imp riding a horribly rabid but still pretty cute bunny rabbit and unleashed into the night with a tape recorder. For example, “Blessed be the Bicycle” starts innocently enough, a little bit of jangling indie-pop with male/female vocals; they then simultaneously yelp, break into a quick spoken word and spiral into a little angular punk before start/stopping the rest of the song between sleepy xylophone-laced pop and screeching atonal rock. The rest of album follows suit with collective yelling, odd chord progressions, toy instruments here, ravaging noise there, a little Polyvinyl pop sitting next to 5RC avant-rock leaving the only predictable element being that you know the polar opposite sound is coming next. Gleanings and Gatherings is obviously not going to reach far past some fun-loving college radio stations but who really cares? It’s a colorful DIY party encased in a silicone disc where everyone gets to try their idea no matter how wacky, play their instrument as loud as they can and yell their fucking hearts out with huge smiles on their faces. How can you hate on that?