Previous album

Andrew Bird's previous album, Weather Systems is one of my favorite albums from the first half of this decade. My love for it was almost instant; songs with such sincere melancholy and longing usually do that to me. This will probably sound very melodramatic, but there are some albums, some songs that connect with me in an organic way. It's almost as if they were written in my own DNA. That's how I felt after listening to Weather Systems for the first time.

It's with these high expectations that I listen to Andrew's new album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Would it produce the same sacred response from me? While it doesn't match the synergies I have with Weather Systems, Mysterious Productions evokes a different, but equally positive set of emotions. There's more joy and whimsy in this album. Hope replaces futility; mystery and opportunity replace inevitability and decay. Bird's strength is his emotional sincerity. The playfulness of this album never becomes meaningless frivolity and the seriousness never becomes overwrought angst.

The Mysterious Production of Eggs is available now on Righteous B records.

Let's go

Late Thursdays make for sluggish Fridays:

Conor Oberst hates Texas. In fact, he told the crowd just that during a Fort Worth Bright Eyes show. "I don't know if you know this, but I hate your [expletive] state," he said, according to the Dallas Morning News. "I'd put a [expletive] gun to my head before I'd live in your state." Nice one, Conor. The DMN site requires registration, but the full text of the article is also here.

I couldn't get the stream of the live Underworld broadcast to work yesterday, which made for a frustrating half hour, but Mega Mega Mega scored links to MP3's of the three new songs they played - "TT," "Ancient Fat Farm Coat," and "020202" (which he thinks might be an older song). MMM also reports that the Richard Dorfmeister project Tosca will have a new album called j.a.c. out in June.

20 Jazz Funk Greats has had a great run of downloads recently. First they gave us the Earl Shilton remix of Alter Ego's "Rocker." Lots of people compare "Rocker" to a heavy metal tune but Shilton actually walked the walk - the synths are guitars, the beats are drums, and if you know the original you'll love this remix. More recently, 20JFG gave us Soulwax redoing Daft Punk's "Teachers," changing up the lyrics to reference rock n' roll legends vs. Daft Punk's selection of DJ's. (They spell out the lyrics of both to make it easy.) There are bunch of good selections in between too - Jersey Devil Social Club (who I believe are connected with Morgan Geist's Environ label), a Jason Pierce (AKA J. Spaceman) remix, and plenty more.

Erol Alkan is a fantastic DJ that runs the Trash party in London but is surprisingly unknown over here. His set at the Tribeca Grand last January was one of my favorites of '04 though - he opened his set with "Yeah" (this was *right* when it had come out) and blew the roof off the place. Melody Nelson has an MP3 of Erol remixing (or more specifically "re-editing") Death From Above 1979's "Romantic Rights." Good stuff. DFA79 are at the Bowery on March 10 and I'm excited to see them. Who knows when Erol Alkan will be back. Hopefully soon.

The April 9 Fiery Furnaces show at the Bowery Ballroom is now at Webster Hall and like Central Village, I'm struggling to think of anything positive about that. Thankfully I have the Furnaces Northsix gig to fall back on. Let's just hope Bloc Party's shows don't move as well - the fact that they sold both out before even releasing their album here is just crazy.

GoF are touring the UK now and playing Coachella in the spring. No NYC dates yet, but we're smack in between the two and that's an awfully long flight to be making in one shot...