Bird Show
Green Inferno
Kranky

It's an ungodly hour for a 23-year-old. It's 8 am. But I've found myself going to bed with the birds lately. And when you go to bed with the birds, you get up with the birds, and you get some kind of worm that people say is really awesome. Bird Show are on Kranky Records out of Chicago. Kranky currently distrubutes albums by Jessica Bailiff, Charalambides, The Dead Texan, Growing, Out Hud, Pan American, Stars of the Lid, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and Windy & Carl. Bird Show looks mighty interesting, let us take an early morning listen:

A fitting beginning. Field samples. Then you're roused awake. Reeds drone, a godly tone holds and oscillates slowly for two and a half minutes. Field samples return to create "All Afternoon Pt. 1"'s 3rd section. Very perfect beginning. "Kind Light" births Mr. Ben Vida's (Good Life) soft voice, and contains a high-wire crystal drone. The title track combines to keep the album understated, but not boring. The tone of the melodic drums is pleasing and keeps you afloat. Horn and crystal drones return in "Always/Never Sleep Pt. 1". The song gets so quiet it nearly dies in its middle, employing almost-classical dynamic techniques. A crystal comes back to signal a gorgeous saw-wave sheet. The song ends by layering many crystal blankets on those triangle sheets. This song pulls that odd trick of seeming shorter than it really is; it's a long one at 9:22.

"Always/Never Sleep Part 2" is the middle-child on the album and so understated that it barely exists. "Tracers" brings a bit of life back with steel-drum samples. Droning tones are one thing, but the minimal rhythms on this track go no-where. Vida's nice voice thankfully returns in "Morning/Evening". Oh the droning tremello strings (played live, not pads) here are great. They abruptly end and are replaced with more field samples, but this time instead of crickets and bugs you have human voices. Then this song does one of the most intoxicating things I've ever heard. At exactly 3:04 you'll hear the voices abrupt, then the magical thing happens. You'll see.

This brain-wave generating drone music continues on with "Landlovers". Another understated jem. Those fields return in the last tune "All Afternoon Pt. 2 (Dawn)". These sounds affirm! We are animals! There is an intense, instinctual, probably antiquated emotion conjured in many of these tunes.

I hope you hear it, cause I sure got that worm this morning. Green Inferno is an incredible album. Try it early! This Lunakafe plate is a great breakfast meal!

Copyright © 2005 Bill Banks