Andrew Bird

Palindrome fetishist and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird is a classical maestro and glockenspiel augurer whose exuberant pop is a joy to behold. Upturning Suzuki violin techniques in favour of early jazz and Hungarian gypsy music, Bird’s voyage through country-blues, lavish pizzicato strings, fireside whistling and bedside intimacy, has thus far bedecked ten long-players (both solo and with his former charge, the Bowl of Fire).

Bird’s most recent release, ‘Armchair Apocrypha’, and its impeccable predecessor, ‘The Mysterious Production of Eggs’, lambently showcase the Chicago polymath’s charms: superstitious meditations; far-flung historical rambles; chestnut-dappled musical palettes of Scythian empires, heretics, masterfades. They delineate his soaring flights from doe-eyed naivety to deadpan sagacity.