ms-nietzsche
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I absolutely LOVE Andrew Bird.
I just saw this article he wrote, and couldn't find a thread on him so here we go
I just saw this article he wrote, and couldn't find a thread on him so here we go
nytimesWithout Words
I listened to my record recently and I’m concerned about how much I like it.
This has never happened to me at this stage of making a record. Right about now is usually when I want to scrap the whole thing and start over. In fact, scrapping whole records has become par for the course for me when recording.
“The Mysterious Production of Eggs” was recorded and mixed three separate times between 2002 and 2005. Some songs were recorded six different ways. With every record I feel like I’m starting from scratch and have to teach myself how to make it.
But if I like my record too much does it mean I’m getting complacent? Or am I just getting better at making records sound the way I want them to? It worries me because what I love about songwriting is that there is no guaranteed formula for success. I’m hoping that getting better at making records means, for one thing, that I am learning how to leave room for serendipitous moments. I always want to hear how things didn’t go according to plan.
I’m especially happy with how “Oh No” — the song I introduced in my first post — turned out, now that I’ve sat on it for a few weeks. When the drums switch from the rumbly toms to the tight “Fleetwood Mac-style” beat and we sing “Oh no, you’re deep in a mine,” I can’t help but jog in place and pump my fists — a response preferable to scrutinizing how my voice goes a little flat on the third bar of the verse. And isn’t it great that a song about crippling self-repression and the envy of childhood expressions of fear and sorrow can be so joyous?
It’s also been interesting to see how adding drums to fairly complete songs can cast such a different light on their feel and character.
I’ve been meaning to mention that I’ve been working on another record at the same time as this one. It’s supposed to be an instrumental record and I’ve been switching between sessions of the “song” record and this more indulgent ambient experimental record. I recently spent another week at the Wilco loft playing with percussionist Glenn Kotche of Wilco and Todd Sickafoose, a brilliant upright bass player from Brooklyn. I just thought, let’s put us all in a room and see what happens. These guys are some of the most virtuosic, thoughtful musicians I know, in keeping with my vow to only make music with really good people.
Glenn and I filled up two reels of tape with these long-form cyclical patterns. I’m just making these polyrhythmic pizzicato loops I’ve been obsessed with for the last few years and seeing how Glenn responds with percussion. I think of it as trying to bridge the gap between Steve Reich or Arthur Russell and West-African musical forms from ornamental kora music to the driving m’bira of Konono No. 1. I tend to favor the short, simple motifs that repeat for as long as 30 seconds as opposed to linear solos. The result may be not unlike some electronic dance music only with woody, grainy sounds rather than the perfect sine waves of a synthesizer. How to be minimal and repetitive without being insipid is the challenge.
I’ve also been trying to write some lyrics for a Martin Dosh tune called “First Impossible,” from his new record, which has one of the more undeniable beats I’ve heard in a while — one that I’m sure Missy Elliot would lift in a heartbeat. Sometimes I like to try reversing the process with some of Dosh’s instrumentals and write lyrics for pre-existing music. This is hard because the process is more deliberate than the way my songs tend to rise to the surface when they are ready. It worked surprisingly well with a tune called “Simple X” on the last record, “Armchair Apocrypha,” and sounds strikingly different than the other tracks.
So this instrumental record is full of homeless melodies, polyrhythmic pizzicato, Debussy-like, minimalistic string passages thrown from a rotating speaker, and lots of really inventive percussion. I just want to make sure it’s engaging enough to warrant the packaging involved in a separate record. I’ve admitted to myself that it may only be an idea reservoir — a place to breed future songs and also catch some of the overflow of ideas from the “song record.” That’s sort of what I did with “Weather Systems,” a record that preceded “The Mysterious Production of Eggs”; it was only invented as a way to take the pressure of too many ideas off of the latter record. I think this record will be different, though; it’s going to rely more on the subtle textures of sound and resist the verse-chorus shape.
I’m trying to get over this mental block I have against the validity of instrumental music. I think this tension between craft and experimental, improvisatory indulgence is healthy. My wariness toward “jamming” is based on years playing in listless jazz combos where everyone pulls out their real books and plays “Song for my Father” or “Equinox” for the umpteenth time. That feeling of futility just became too much for me to bear. After getting tendonitis in the summer of my 22nd year playing jigs and reels for Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts as they waited in line for the privy at a southern Wisconsin Renaissance Faire, I swore I wouldn’t associate that sort of futility with music again. A decade later, I’m loosening those reins a bit.
Still, the human voice makes us pay attention in such a different way. As much as I sometimes downplay the importance of lyrics I can’t seem to resist writing them. I think I only pretend to disrespect words so I don’t give myself a complex about it. All I can say is that words are tricky. Want to give yourself a complex? Write a blog about a song you haven’t finished writing.
