duggup

Artist: Bowerbirds
Website: www.bowerbirds.org/ or www.myspace.com/bowerbirds
Track Name:
Playback: Noflash

The Bowerbirds are an indie folk outfit in the Devandra/Sufjan school but and they have such a strong sense of melody that it seems an unfair comparison. It’s simple music with very clever and understated arrangements. The voice and the words are all important here. They have a message, songs about trees, plants and animals and the terrible things we keep doing to them.

Don’t panic, it’s good music and I found it refreshing (but then look at what I listen to…).

Josh Maddell from Other Music wrote…

With finger-picked acoustic guitar, herky-jerky accordion, click-clack percussion and a noble bass drum hit, soaring violins and aching vocal melody, North Carolina trio Bowerbirds deliver their lovely and haunting back-to-nature message to the computer and cell phone nation. It’s not that they are proselytizing, but in Phil Moore’s aching tenor (and the lovely harmonies of Beth Tacular), you hear genuine fear for the future and real passion for more honest, simpler times. The album has an infectious homespun sound to it — the feel of a group of friends holed up in a cabin late at night singing from the heart, and the result is sweet, sad and embracing. Bowerbirds clearly can find some fellow travellers in the world of Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Sufjan Stevens. But while freak-folk is already in danger of becoming another catchall for musical mediocrity as the bearded masses pile on, this group is already garnering much well-deserved attention for their excellent songwriting and a deep, thoughtful album that is as thoroughly enjoyable as it is thought-provoking.

Recommended.

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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