If you’re the proprietor of a coffee shop, you probably went all-out and bought the deluxe edition of Andrew Bird’s 2009 album Noble Beast (TMT Review), just for the bonus disc of latte-companion instrumental music titled Useless Creatures that came along with it.
But for everyone else that thought that Useless Creatures was just the most clever title for an ancillary collection of non-essential junkers since The Shitty Beatles, Andrew Bird’s got a surprise for you. On October 25, Fat Possum (and Bella Union in the UK) is releasing said album on its own for the first time, thereby elevating the thing from “throwaway sketchbook tracked with his buddies” to “ambient experimental record featuring Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and jazz-trained bassist Todd Sickafoose.” So we all have to run out and reckon with it this new way now, I think. Sorry, coffee shop proprietors.
Bird is also playing more than a handful of shows before the year is out, including a few European dates and several solo US winter dates, once again based around the Dutch concept of Gezelligheid. Yes, he’s done this before. Why? Because re-contextualizing things is what artists DO, man.
Tourdates:
10.07.10 - Lisbon, Portugal - Aula Magna
10.09.10 - Puerto de Sta Maria, Spain - Monkey Week Festival
10.14.10 - Granada, Spain - Teatro Isidoro Maiquez
10.19.10 - Rome, Italy - Parco Della Musica
12.06.10 - Washington, DC - Sixth & I Synagogue
12.07.10 - Washington, DC - Sixth & I Synagogue
12.10.10 - Boston, MA - Converse Hall at Tremont Temple
12.16.10 - Chicago, IL - Fourth Presbyterian Church
12.17.10 - Chicago, IL - Fourth Presbyterian Church
• Andrew Bird: http://www.andrewbird.net
• Fat Possum: http://www.fatpossum.com
• Bella Union: http://www.bellaunion.com
[Photo: Cameron Wittig]
