Beloved singer-songwriter and world-class whistler Andrew Bird is back with new material, whose ninth album Are You Serious comes out via Loma Vista April 1. The record is professed to be his most personal yet, with less abstruse wordplay and a more vulnerable side of the multilayered artist on view.
Bird muses: “What happens when real ordeals befall someone who has always been happy writing from their imagination and the distance of the third person? Who has time for poetics while grappling with birth and death? What’s the role of sincerity for a songwriter who doesn’t really go in for the confessional thing? This is what I struggled with for this record. I suppose the title could be poking fun at my own foray into the confessional realm.”
The result is a distillation of distinct, unguarded arrangements and ideas that resonated with Bird over a three-to-four year period. In advance of the LP he’s shared a few tracks — including “Roma Fade,” a song about the nervous tension of romantic attraction, propelled by his signature pizzicato on the violin and a propulsive drum beat. The track also comes accompanied by classic artwork from conceptual artist John Baldessari.
Bird will be hitting the road at the end of March in support of the new album, performing to a sold-out crowd at DC’s 9:30 Club April 5.
poetry in an empty coke can 