A blog about Bloomsbury Academic's 33 1/3 series, our other books about music, and the world of sound in general.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Bowerbirds

Saw the Bowerbirds play for the first time last night, at the bottom of a Bowery Ballroom bill, and was thoroughly enchanted. I had tears in my eyes by the end of the second song, and felt spiritually cleansed by the end of their set. If they alight in a town near you, you should drop everything to go and hear them play.

Here's a very low-res cameraphone pic:



And here's a much better pic, including trees, from their website:



And finally, here's what our Black Sabbath scribe John Darnielle has to say about their debut album Hymns for a Dark Horse, which you can pre-order now:

Only once every ten years or so does one hear a new band this good, this bursting with ideas, this audibly in love with music. I will be surprised if, after living the album a year or two, I don't place it mentally alongside such holy-fuck debuts as the Gun Club's Fire of Love or more pertinently Souled American's Fe. It is that good. That they recorded this themselves, sweetly booming bass drums and roomy nylon-strung acoustics and all, just pushes the totally-bananas factor out there a little further. The lyrics, the rhythms, the feel, the never-too-much-always-just-enough sweetness of the vocals. The totality of the mood, the wide-ranging shades of melancholy and joy. The points at which the three members sing in unison like some cult who really have discovered the secrets of the universe. It is beyond stunning. This band is the complete package.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds wonderful. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch them the next time I'm in NYC.

Unrelated: I notice you've added the estimable Mr. Terry Edwards to the ol' blog roll over there. Did I miss something, or is he writing an upcoming 33 1/3? Because that would be very cool indeed.

David said...

Hi there - yes, Terry is writing a book on the first Madness album, which we'll be publishing in either late 2008 or early 2009. Very exciting!!

Andrea said...

Ah! I missed that somehow. Neat.

Anonymous said...

mr darnielle has wholly expressed my love for bowerbirds. that album is an absolute beauty and i really don't see myself getting tired of it in any kind of rush. wonderful wonderful wonderful.

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