Thank God it's fatal
I was chatting on IM yesterday with a friend, and our conversation inevitably turned to music. She said, "Have you heard any of the new Andrew Bird tracks?" And I wrote back, "The record came in the mail today!" She then typed "BLEEEEARGH," which she claimed was her having a seizure. A jealousy seizure, I guess.
I won't lie: getting records in the mail, especially ones that don't come out for a month, is fantastic. It never, ever gets old. It's often hard - and I'm sure the other Robots can attest to this - to avoid posting a track until the release date is a bit closer, because, well, I've got the new Andrew Bird record, with a track cleared for posting, and it's really damn good.
The record in question is titled Armchair Apocrypha and out March 20 on Fat Possum Records. Fans have heard other versions of some of these tracks before, most notably on his recent Fingerlings 3 record, which featured versions of this record's "Darkmatter" and "Scythian Empires." They sound brand new on Armchair Apocrypha, which also features Minneapolis hometown heroes Martin Dosh and Haley Bonar. The record is Bird's Fat Possum debut, after recording most recently for Ani Difranco's Righteous Babe label.
What else can I say? The whistling, the pulsating and thumping drums, the swirling violins - you totally want this record, and that's why you should pre-order it from Fat Possum. If you're not the pre-order type, just keep it on your to-do list, because Armchair Apocrypha isn't to be missed.