(3504) Andrew Bird / St. Vincent

WATCH FULL EPISODE ONLINE

From the ACL taping program on March 18, 2009:

Multi-instrumentalist and singer/song­writer, Andrew Bird has captured au­diences around the world with his unique style. Through amazing vocals, whistling, violin, guitar and glockenspiel, this Chica­go-born musician seems to have brought about a new phase of folk and indie rock.

Bird began studying the violin at age four and launched his professional music ca­reer in 1996, after graduating from North­western University with a degree in violin performance. That same year he released his first solo album, Music of Hair. Since then Bird has worked in two bands, the Squirrel Nut Zippers and his own Bowl of Fire, played in countless album col­laborations, and produced eight albums.

Bird’s 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha received national acclaim and put him at the top of many “best of” lists that year. Paste wrote on Armchair Apocrypha Bird is “simultaneously at his most clever and most luminous.” Bird has developed a finesse for off-kilter pop that takes mortality, confusion, and unexpected realizations as its subject,” wrote The Onion AV Club.

His most recent album Noble Beast, released in January, has been a hit among critics and fans alike. The Austin Chronicle said, “With Noble Beast, Bird proves that he’s a whistling Renais­sance man for modern times.” Alternative Press said, “It’s less mopey than Bright Eyes, less pompous than Sufjan Stevens and better than almost everything else.”

“Bird could be the only performer who’s lit up both Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo with a combination of vocals, violin, guitar, glockenspiel and whistling ... he uses cen­turies-old instrumentation to give depth and soul to folk rock” wrote Esquire.

From the ACL taping program on June 20, 2009:

With only two releases, St. Vincent is already known for writing songs full of lyrical “detail and charm” (Billboard) and “creative instrumentation and melodically special music” (Delusions of Adequacy). The “playful chanteuse and fearsome shredder“ (NY Times), also known as Annie Clark makes her Austin City Limits debut tonight.

Two years ago, Clark’s recorded debut as St. Vincent, Marry Me, gave immediate notice that a new talent had emerged from Texas. Critics were entranced by the album’s precocious arrangements and elegant lyrics, and the steadily growing crowds at St. Vincent’s live shows were astonished by Clark’s gargantuan musical chops and her magnetic stage presence. Pitchfork wrote: “At every turn Marry Me takes the more challenging route of twisting already twisted structures and unusual instrumentation to make them sound perfectly natural and, most importantly, easy to listen to as she overdubs her thrillingly sui generis vision into vibrant life.”

Her newest release, Actor, takes that debut’s ambition as its starting point and never looks back. The CD is “a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods that’ll get you hooked, fast” (Entertainment Weekly). The arrangements are more masterful, the songwriting grander, the performances ever more confident and inspired. Clark developed an idiosyncratic writing process for Actor, immersing herself in some of her favorite films — Badlands, Pierrot le Fou, The Wizard of Oz, Stardust Memories, Sleeping Beauty — and beginning each song as a secret film score, then slowly giving it independence as its structure and lyrics came fully into focus.