March 6, 2012

Review: “Orpheo Looks Back,” by Andrew Bird


TRACK 10

“Orpheo Looks Back”

From Andrew Bird’s Break It Yourself

Liner notes: Hitching his wistful voice and elegant violin to a jaunty tempo suggesting an Appalachian hoedown, Andrew Bird evokes a sense of restless longing on this album, his 12th.

Behind the music: The Chicagoan employed his classical violin skills on collaborations with the throwback Southern combo Squirrel Nut Zippers during the ’90s. More experimental in his own work, Bird recently appeared on the soundtrack for The Muppets performing “The Whistling Caruso” and scored the indie film Norman.

Check it out if you like: Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Sam Beam (Iron and Wine), and David Byrne—smart, sensitive eccentrics all.

Front page image: Guus Krol/Flickr

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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