One could arguably describe Andrew Bird as the quietest, most exquisite big deal in the music business. His last album Noble Beast (2009) sold 150,000 copies in the US alone and debuted on the Billboard chart at #12. He also has cumulative album sales of well over half a million.

Self-produced new album “Break It Yourself” was put together in a traditional way, recorded to eight track at Bird’s barn in Western Illinois with a core group of drummer Martin Dosh, guitarist and keys man Jeremy Ylvisaker and Mike Lewis on tenor sax and bass.

“Break It Yourself” is as warm-hearted and eclectic as ever. It sounds like all the music and no music you’ve ever heard, from jazz to country to classical to folk and pop, visiting a thousand exotic places along the way and the public has no problem with that. Pondering his increasing popularity, which can’t simply be put down to a hard work ethic, Bird suggests why he has registered with a much wider audience. “People have been exposed to more and different things - palate is the right word. It’s a sensory thing,” he says. The implied food comparison seems apt, the ingredients don’t necessarily produce what one expects but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

1. Desperation Breeds…
2. Polynation
3. Danse Carribe
4. Give It Away
5. Eyeoneye
6. Lazy Projector
7. Near Death Experience Experience
8. Things Behind the Barn
9. Lusitania
10. Orpheo Looks Back
11. Sifters
12. Fatal Shore
13. Hole in the Ocean Floor
14. Belles