[2012.05.05] Andrew Bird at Beacon Theatre, New York, NY

I can't believe I forgot to post about this show.  I woke up with a live version of Sectionate City stuck in my head today, so. This is "Give it Away" from the new album. I got a free digital download of the album and a live EP called Fake Conversations with my tickets - a very nice touch.

I can't find a better video at the moment, maybe I'll upgrade this later. The one I wanted to use in the first place finally started working. I originally posted Sifters, which you can watch here because it is also very nice. These are quite good for what's probably a smartphone, thank the venue for that. See a show there if you ever get a chance, please. There is no bad seat. They took advantage of this quite a bit, performing almost half a dozen songs gathered around a single microphone (including the one below, which is why I switched to this video), a trend that I really hope catches on more (see a very old First Aid Kit post with no microphones at all for more of the same).

Beirut at Coachella

I'm not much of a Beirut fan, but this is still stuck in my head, so

[2010] Waggers Over The Station - Upekkha first impression

Waggers... appears to be the work of one Casey Shew, an unsigned artist who mixes ambient soundscapes full of pops and crackles, thoughtful and engaging percussion, and ethereal acoustic guitar with vocal samples and mostly mumbling male vocals. Climaxes build out of howling wind, twinkling bells, nice thick synths, and escalating guitar, and you wonder if this is what Mount Eerie would have sounded like if it had been taken in a more instrumental direction. And that's just the first two tracks. Suddenly, traditional melody appears. Accordion, more croon to the vocals...is that a marimba? I'm thoroughly engaged - and just as quickly, the tone turns darkly vicious. The anguished shrieks are a bit too earnest and jarring, but on the whole, the transitions on this record are actually fairly smooth and feel quite natural. The pacing of this record will either really please you, or will have you hitting "delete" before the first song even really gets going. Only halfway through the album as I write this, I can tell it won't appeal to many, but this is the kind of self-indulgent turd-sculpting that I love most. I found it on Dying For Bad Music, my favorite blog that's also a label, and it says here that there's an overt Mount Eerie reference on the album, but I haven't noticed it. Maybe the tiles of the first & last track? Who care.

Since it's being distributed online for free, that means I can too. Click here to download Waggers Over The Station - Upekkha