For his entire career, Andrew Bird has been an enigma — a round piece unable to fit into any square genre, his music a gentle swirl of folk, pop and even classical, all of it sounding unlike most everything else.
And that’s why he’s succeeded, says Thaddeus Rudd, GM of Bird’s label, Mom + Pop. Bird’s ninth album, “Break It Yourself,” due March 6, is primed to open more doors for him. “Wilco, the Decemberists, My Morning Jacket — these are artists that occupy a place where no one sounds like them and they have fully formed identities. It didn’t happen overnight or on the first or second record,” Rudd says. “And Andrew completely fits that bill.”
Chicago-born Bird was releasing music for nearly a decade before his first breakthrough, 2003′s “Weather Systems,” kicked off his incremental climb up the indie rock ladder. In 2008, a homecoming show drew 13,000 fans to Chicago’s Millennium Park. After a dip into soundtrack work last year for “The Muppets” and “Norman,” “Break It Yourself” marks the longest between-album gap of Bird’s career. Continue reading
