Filled with layers of violin, glockenspiel, vocal harmonies, guitar, piano, and the most amazing whistling, Armchair Apocrypha is the latest from Andrew Bird (Chicago, IL.). Bird enlisted his touring drummer Martin Dosh (a.k.a. Dosh) and several other musicians to create this melancholy collage of gentle pop songs. Primarily a violinist, Andrew Bird has pioneered his own distinct sound as an eclectic instrumentalist and songwriter."Violinist-guitarist Andrew Bird goes further, filling his richly ornamented yet understated alt-pop with allusions to actual lab work." - Jon Dolan - BLENDER

Strip away the music of an Andrew Bird song, and you're left with brilliant prose ("across the great chasms and schisms and the sudden aneurysms"), vignettes about mentally fending off plane crashes, infiltrating characters like the kings of Macedonia and Lou Dobbs, and titles such as "Yawny at the Apocalyspe." It's hard to believe that, really, his music reigns, but when Bird adds understated acoustic guitars, Wurlitzer and Rhodes, and his own mesmerizing pizzicato violin, his songs take on a progressive mood all their own. The Chicago Bird's tenth album (and his debut for extraordinary Mississippi blues label Fat Possum) is perhaps his most diverse, expansive, and resourceful yet, catering to a half-dozen genres of music while exploring storylines that are naïve ("Dark Matter"), candid ("Fiery Crash"), and blatantly comical ("Armchairs"). Making no palpable effort to crack the conventional with overflowing melodies and love songs, Bird instead latches up the intellect to create tiny packages of literature that make always leave you thinking--and snapping your fingers at the same time. --Scott Holter