Andrew Bird to release new album

Andrew Bird’s Useless Creatures—previously only available with the deluxe edition of Bird’s 2009 album Noble Beast—is set for release as a stand-alone LP and CD for the first time on Fat Possum Records October 25. An instrumental companion piece to Noble Beast, the album features Glenn Kotche on percussion and Todd Sickafoose on double bass.

Noble Beast was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “[Bird’s] most instantly inviting album by far,” while Pitchfork called the record “fantastically detailed.” Pitchfork went on to say that “the bonus disc that comes with the deluxe edition, Useless Creatures, has a captivating looseness that finally brings some of the high-wire energy of [Bird’s] unpredictable live shows into the studio.”

Described by Bird as an “ambient experimental record,” Useless Creatures was recorded over the course of a week in Chicago.

“The result may be not unlike some electronic dance music only with woody, grainy sounds rather than the perfect sine waves of a synthesizer,” notes Bird. “How to be minimal and repetitive without being insipid is the challenge.”

Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and lyricist Andrew Bird picked up his first violin at the age of four and spent his formative years soaking up classical repertoire completely by ear. As a teen Bird became interested in a variety of styles including early jazz, country blues and gypsy music, synthesizing them into his unique brand of pop. Since beginning his recording career in 1997 he has released eleven albums, his first solo recordWeather Systems coming in 2003. Bird has gone on to record with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Most recently he collaborated with inventor Ian Schneller on Sonic Arboretum, an installation at New York’s Guggenheim Museum.