SOUNDTRACK: ANDREW BIRD-Tiny Desk Concert #536 (May 31, 2016).
I haven’t known too many of the recent Tiny Desk performers, but I do know Andrew Bird. I heard him on NPR and was quite taken with his whistling (one of his trademarks). I bought his album, but learned after listening to it that I prefer him more in small doses and single songs rather than a whole album.
And while I didn’t love the album (it’s good but didn’t blow me away), these three songs are pretty great.
That whistling is present a lot during this Tiny Desk Concert. The first song “Are You Serious” has a lot of whistling and is an incredibly catchy song (possibly because it has a very similar melody to “Oops I Did It Again”?). Regardless of the reason, this song is really fun. One of the delightful things about Bird, in addition to his whistling is that he also plays violin in number of different ways. He strums it like a guitar for the beginning of the song and even plays a plucked solo (while still holding it like a guitar). There’s also some “proper playing” by the end of the song.
“Roma Fade” also opens with his whistling and violin plucking and then shifts to s much more uptempo violin bowing. It’s got a very catchy melody and again I love how he switches from plucked violin notes to bowed melody.
“Capsized” is a song I have been hearing on WXPN quite a bit. I had no idea it was him and I really liked it so it was a surprise treat to hear it here. I don’t recall if the radio version opens this way but in the Tiny Desk, there’s a great fast violin intro and some bowed upright bass rumbling. The verses are great but it’s the the catchy chorus “and when you wake up” that rules the song. There’s a cool plucked violin solo and some more nice bowing.
The band he has (bass, guitar and drums) also sings great harmonies which really make these songs sound big. It’s a great Tiny Desk and means I’m going have to dig out the album I have and give it another spin. And actually it is good, just a bit more mellow than I like.
[READ: March 10, 2016] Three Shadows
I really liked just about everything in this graphic novel. I was struck almost from the start by Pedrosa’s drawing style, which relished in loops.
The first page has a boy and his father walking in the garden. The tree is comprised of circles, the man’s pipe is producing circle smoke rings, even the apples in the trees are swirling circles. The whole pages looks to be in motion. And it has a very interesting folk-art feel. On the next page the trees are simply big swirling circles. It’s really visually striking.
However, once a story begins “Back then life was simple and sweet,” you know that the story isn’t going to be a happy one.
But it does start off peaceful. This small family–mom dad and little boy live in an idyllic little house far from the world. But one day, their dad sees three shadows on the top of the hill. He gets really freaked out about them even though they don’t come close. His wife thinks that he is overreacting, but every time he sees them, he knows they are up to something. And then one night they come in adn try to take the little boy.
The father freaks out and decides to take the boy far away where these shadows cannot find him. And they set off on a journey.
They wind up on a boat which has nefarious surprises. But since the captain sees the pure-heartedness of the boy’s father he knows that the man is not there for those bad reasons. Nevertheless, the boat is attacked.
When they finally land ashore, an old man offers the father a deal–sacrifice his own soul to protect his son. His son tells him no, but the father loves him so much that he agrees.
The only part of the story that I didn’t really like was this brief section–I didn’t really like the transformation the father underwent. Although seeing as how it was a shortlived one, I actually liked it more in retrospect.
Eventually, we learn who the three shadows are and how the father can try to get his soul back. Despite the very real underpinnings of this story it has a fairy taleesque quality. And, since Pedrosa has worked for Disney, I could see this as a Disney short pretty easily.
As the opening indicated, this is not a happy story (and if you read the origin of the story, it’s even worse), but fortunately Pedrosa (as translated by Edward Gauvin) has given us a bittersweet ending and some beautiful artwork.
#10yearsof01
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