Andrew Bird – Break It Yourself

Releasedate: 05-03-2012; Label: Cooperative Music
By: Lara Cappelli

Andrew Bird is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Chicago. His music holds together folk and indie influences as well as rock and pop ones. His latest album “Break It Yourself” was released early this month.

Back-to-the-roots is a fair expression when it comes to describing this album very briefly. Fortunately “Break It Yourself” is much more than that, with a concept that goes far beyond the one just mentioned. As a matter of fact, the move that Andrew Bird chose to do doesn’t go back to his earliest release, as the expression might suggest, but rather towards the ultimate core his music has always been about: his violin. All the songs seem somehow based on that instrument, where the rest functions as a delicate ornament that eludes any pattern of composition. Already from the first few songs it’s clear that the intention is to turn loose the combination between skills and composition, which roams around, explores and provides the listener a sort of bittersweet sound. The melodies can be as perky as dramatic, but they rarely drift away from a light and spontaneous feeling. All of the tracks are clearly linked to this atmosphere, resulting very compact in their overall diversity; the first tracks sound somehow shy compared to the last ones, which are left to a more layered structure that turns into songs capable to easily stand on their own.
In the end “Break It Yourself” won’t definitely let down those who already know Andrew Bird. If you are one of those still unfamiliar with this name, you’d better check it out: it has quite some aces in the hole to surprise you with.

Links:
Andrew Bird Facebook
Andrew Bird Official