Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and lyricist Andrew Bird picked up his first violin at the age of 4.  Actually, it was a Cracker Jack box with a ruler taped to it, and the first of his many Suzuki music lessons involved simply bowing to the teacher and going home.  He spent his formative years soaking up classical repertoire completely by ear so when it came time for a restless teen-ager to make the jump to Hungarian Gypsy music, early jazz, country blues, south Indian etc., it wasn't such a giant leap. It's fitting that now, though classically trained, he has instead opted to play his violin in a most unconventional manner, accompanying himself on glockenspiel and guitar, adding singing and whistling to the equation, and becoming a pop songwriter in the process.

Since beginning his recording career, he has released ten albums, most recently 2007’s Armchair Apocrypha.  It is an atmospheric album completely grounded in his artistic present, which touches on themes of the mystery of life, long forgotten empires, plane crashes, and the comfort to be found in impending apocalypse.   The New York Times summed it up well:  “Mr. Bird spins existential doubts into elegant confections.”  Enthusiastic critical notices followed, among them Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Paste, Mojo, Artforum, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Onion, and Pitchfork.   He received first place selection from MTVu’s Freshman for his “Imitosis” video and the Plug Independent Music Award for Best Male Vocalist of 2008. 

The live setting is where Bird becomes one with his songs. At first, it’s a curious attraction - one man generating the wealth of sound normally produced by an orchestra.  Song parts are constructed on violin, guitar, and glockenspiel, layered, then looped over themselves in tangled and textured layers of sonics.  Each night, the songs shape shift within their loops - Andrew rarely replicates a song's perfect structure as it lives on the album, but rather yields an improvisatory aspect to the performance. The scope and range of his performances have been expanded to incorporate the contributions of his collaborators Martin Dosh and Jeremy Ylvisaker.  In 2007 he toured the world and performed to audiences on The David Letterman Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Coachella, Austin City Limits Festival, The Hollywood Bowl, and Bumbershoot as well as 140 of his own concert dates in between. 

Andrew Bird is currently recording his next album, to be released in 2009.

www.andrewbird.net