Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird's Nobel Beast might be every bit as elaborate as the stuff that he's known for -- silly with virtuoso whistling, agile melodies and a patter of plucked strings -- but overall this set is a bit more spare than other recent efforts. Elegant and arching soft pop numbers like "Oh No" and "Tenuousness" outnumber the rococo rockers, and even when it gets cluttered with a kitchen sink of percussion and layered woodwinds, as on "Not a Robot, But a Ghost," the music is played with a gentle hand.

Andrew Bird is a violin virtuoso steeped in early jazz and Celtic folk who announced
himself as a top-shelf singer-songwriter with 2007's Armchair Apocrypha. Here, he takes
another leap, fusing Armchair's emotive indie rock with the chamber-music
experimentalism of his early recordings. "Masterswarm" mixes swirling strings with
flamenco hand claps; "Effigy" stirs country fiddling and vocal harmonies into a go... More >