Andrew Bird - Useless Creatures

Andrew Bird at his psychedelic best. the instrumental bonus album to Noble Beast

1. Master Sigh
2. You Woke Me Up! [mp3]
3. Nyatiti
4. The Barn Tapes
5. Carrion Suite
6. Spinney
7. Dissent
8. Hot Math
9. Sigh Master

ZIP FILE

even the French love Andrew Bird

I stumbled upon this French post about Noble Beast on hype machine today.

now, as language fascinates me, and as I love Andrew Bird's new record, I just had to post this. I went to dictionary.com to get a rough translation of the post. it's beautiful.

I hope you all enjoy it, and go out and buy the damn record if you haven't already!

(I'm just sad that I'm on my work computer and thus can't scan/post the album art from the new album which has very Mr.Darcy-esque pictures of Mr. Bird. ladies, you know what I mean)
___


I know, it is the first time that I write to you, or almost, since our first one evening meets when you opened for Lambchop in Bataclan. I was on the right-sided of the room, inserted in my armchair. I had come only but very quickly you had leaped of loop in loop, and you had whistled all that you had to whistle and I immediately had felt less lost, less solitary.

Good. But if I write to you today, it is at all to speak to you about the good old day. " Oh No". It is because of your small last there. Noble Beast (first time that the title of one of your discs did not plait me, moreover). It is that, you see, on this disc, you even make me things that you had never yet done me and that returns any thing to me, a little perplexed.

Songs to coil me in leather armchairs with half smashed, you have some make to me. Songs for siffloter outside while playing with my shade, too. Songs which are like the small transitory clouds that makes my breath in the cold, very beautiful, holding upright by mere chance and disappearing in a blow from wind, you me refilé a package of it. Songs to claim that I am a funambulist of the pavements, an equilibrist of the bitumen and that blow, nothing nor nobody will never be able to me foutre by ground, you me fourgué some of them.

But there, this “Fitz & The Dizzy Spells”, it is completely other thing.

Andrew, my friend, I do not know what arrives to us but it is the first time that you give me desire for dancing. Not to shake nicely the head or dodeliner in rate. Not to tap panes while looking at outside. Not, really, to dance.

To dance with all my toes and all my fingers, to dance with the shoulders, the elbows and the knees. To dance like a capuchin, to dance as a balloon which deflates, to dance like goutes of rain evenings of high wind, to dance like an initial skater.

I could film that very well and put it on youtube, and one would type the million sights in two times three movements. Or to sell my services with HBO. But makes some, not. I' D rather not. I will like that remains intimate. I will not dance so that one sees me, not so that one look at me, not in Britney. I would only dance because I could not prevent me, in the living room. Just me and this violin. Hidden, withdrawn, intertwined.

Good, so with 1:45, when you start to whistle, brown with the incredible eyes unloads, dance with its hair and that I can type in his hands rather than in mine, that is negotiated. Since one does not leave and that one remains there, hidden, withdrawn, intertwined - a little as that but in less maniéré - that suits me.

After one will pass to the remainder of the disc. One will also stop on “Souverian”, undoubtedly. You and your taste for assonance, you sing sometimes " so very young" and sometimes “Souverian”. It is as for that as you are loved: with you, with this way which you have to launch of the words in the air to see what falls down, one finds with chantonner words like " sociopath" or " translucent alabaster".

From there, words in words, one will still set out again and when it is finished this disc, when it is exhausted, it is that one will be already quite old. And then, promised, one will remember merrily Andrew Bird, Noble Beast and time when we danced.

---

Danser comme un capucin, danser comme un ballon qui se dégonfle, danser comme des goutes de pluie les soirs de grand vent, danser comme un patineur débutant.

Je pourrais très bien filmer ça et le mettre sur youtube, et on taperait le million de vues en deux temps trois mouvements. Ou vendre mes services à HBO. Mais en fait, non. I’d rather not. J’aimerai que ça reste intime. Je ne danserai pas pour qu’on me voit, pas pour qu’on me regarde, pas à la Britney. Je danserais parce que je ne pourrais pas m’en empêcher, seul dans le salon. Juste moi et ce violon. Cachés, soustraits, enlacés.

Bon, si à 1:45, quand tu commences à siffler, une brune aux yeux invraisemblables débarque, danse avec ses cheveux et que je peux taper dans ses mains plutôt que dans les miennes, ça se négocie. Du moment qu’on ne sort pas et qu’on reste là, cachés, soustraits, enlacés - un peu comme ça mais en moins maniéré - ça me va.

Après on passera au reste du disque. On s’arrêtera aussi sur “Souverian”, sans doute. Toi et ton goût pour l’assonance, tu chantes tantôt "so very young" et tantôt “Souverian”. C’est aussi pour ça qu’on t’aime : avec toi, avec cette façon que tu as de lancer des mots en l’air pour voir ce qui retombe, on se retrouve à chantonner des mots comme "sociopath" ou "translucent alabaster".

De là, de mots en mots, on repartira encore et quand on l’aura fini ce disque, quand on l’aura épuisé, c’est qu’on sera déjà bien vieux. Et alors, promis, on se souviendra gaiement d’Andrew Bird, de Noble Beast et du temps où nous dansions.

record review: Andrew Bird - Noble Beast REPOST, SANS MP3s

[URG, DMCA!!]

Andrew Bird has a great, varied resume when it comes to his discography. His early work with his makeshift band, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire, is barely recognizable to his post “Weather Systems” fans, oozing with, no, you didn’t guess it, JAZZ influences.

He found his niche with his solo debut, “Weather Systems”, and stuck with it for three records. “Noble Beast” is another story entirely. Bird manages to simultaneously sound like everything you’ve ever heard and something completely new.

This album is Bird’s most eclectic record to date, and it feels like a global roadtrip. Don’t let the excessive whistling fool you; here, you’ll find some of Bird’s most heartbreaking and dreary lyrics.
He bears his heart on “Effigy”, a song which is like a cross between an Irish folk song and a lullaby. The lyric “fake conversations on a non existent telephone like the words of a man who’s spent too much time alone” is closely followed by a soulful violin solo, and the second time around, he does things with his voice much in the vein of Zach Condon (you know, that drawn out gorgeosity that will captivate you for hours). Well done, Andrew!

While Bird’s music has always kind of reminded me of Radiohead, it has never been so evident as on “Masterswarm”, but then Bird delves into a whistling frenzy, maintaining his own unique twist on everything. It’s obvious that Bird has been listening to more pop music lately, as the violin solo in “Souverian” closely resembles the melody of “My Girl” by the Temptations.

“Tenuousness” reinvents a simple guitar chord progression which you’ve heard a thousand times in American folk songs. “Noble Beast” is strangely danceable, as Bird combines pop sensibility (“Fitz and Dizzyspells”) and songs that could be found on a soundtrack to a Jane Austen novel (“Effigy”).

“Not a Robot, but a Ghost”, which incorporates electronica beats, was the most surprising track of the bunch, as I did not expect the classically trained Bird to ever tread that territory. “Noble Beast” is a very experimental album, but it turned out quite nicely. Bird combined Northern European folk influences with more contemporary rock sounds, and even gives us a Middle Eastern sounding interlude with “Unfolding Fans”.

Bird ends the journey with “On Ho!”, a beautiful, melancholy instrumental number which reassures you that while he may experiment every now and then, his unique, superb song writing will never falter.

The verdict: while it may take a few thorough listens, this album will inevitably win you over. A stunning masterpiece, but I have come to expect nothing less from Mr. Bird.

4.25/5


“Noble Beast” drops on the 20th, but you can pre-order it
on CD
or double LP
or deluxe edition (CD)
the deluxe edition includes "Useless Creatures", an album of instrumental tracks. you can stream the entire thing HERE