Birds, by Bic Runga.
Dec. 3rd, 2005 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseBic Runga: Birds
This is just a preliminary reviewish thinky thing, so don’t take it too seriously, okey dokey? And a quick recommendation: like so much of Bic’s opus, this albums is best listened to in silence and turned up quite loud, so you can hear everything, at least for the first hearing or so. Um, this will contain spoilers for Birds, if you, you know, believe in spoilers for music. I know I prefer to listen to an album firsthand before reading reviews and things so… Anyway, first I’ll blether for a bit about the album as a whole, and then I’ll go through it track by track and say something about each of them. Okay? Okay.
Disclaimer: All the lyrics quoted here from Birds come directly from my own hearing, as there’s no lyric resource around; if you’re hearing it differently do mention it. Lyrics quoted from Beautiful Collision and Drive come from www.bicrunga.com. All the lyrics quoted herein are the property of Bic Runga: go out and buy the CD, it’s really worth it. I LOVE it.
Gonna start with some rambling; I’d love to do a coherent review but I’m no good at that sort of thing, so instead I’ll point you to this one at www.bicrunga.net.nz, which is the Sunday Star Times review, which is nice and comes to many of the same conclusions I do, but more coherently and with Experienced Music Reviewer cred. :P
Firstly, some things about the recording of this album: non-Kiwis won’t recognise the fact that this album is practically festooned with Very Important New Zealand Musicians, like Neil Finn of the Finn Brothers and also Crowded House (even Americans have heard of Crowded House!); Anika Moa and Shayne Carter; Marc Taddei, who’s a conductor of symphony orchestras and things; and a couple of others. Then, it was recorded and all in a mere two months, August/September 2005, in a big old house up in Auckland. Obviously it was written before that, but still… that’s pretty fast. There are some extra tidbits about it here, for those interested.
Secondly, this album definitely continues a lot of the trends that Beautiful Collision took after Drive; the tracks are all much more highly layered and see a lot of instruments in the background. It’s also a lot slower and less poppy than Beautiful Collision; overall it reminds me of Bic Runga Live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, which is rich and lush and beautiful, but without the symphony. :P Although there are some tracks which make excellent use of a string group, conducted by the aforementioned Marc Taddei, who is HILARIOUS. And also a great conductor. But it is slower overall- even Winning Arrow, which is supposedly the poppy song of the album, is a lot slower than Get Some Sleep, which is its equivalent on BC. Um, in some ways the whole thing, the song which most fits on it from her previous stuff would be “Dust”, which is this kind of obscure track from, umm, I think the special edition disc to Drive.
The songs are long- It’s an eleven-track album with 46 minutes, which is, for those playing at home, more than four minutes per track; which is a definite change as most of her songs, I think, are sort of reasonably short. Nevertheless it’s still quite a short album, possibly because of its comparatively short gestation period. They also explore more interesting rhythms and beats than she’s used previously; I think in some ways it’s quite experimental and creative, in the same way that say Goldenhorse’s (a NZ band, very awesome) recent album Out of the Moon is. There’s a lot of use of backing vocals- Anika Moa, Shayne Carter and Anna Coddington, along with a few others- which kind of remind me of… well, I have this image in my head of three girls in a row with microphones like on those old bands, you know? Even though the music itself isn’t similar to that.
Anyway. Um, I guess that’s all I have to say on the thing as a whole, or something- like I said, I wish I could do a proper review but, well, can’t. So! Onto a track-by-track blether!
1. Winning Arrow
Like Beautiful Collision, Birds starts with a relatively straightforward, reasonably poppy song (on BC, this was Get Some Sleep) that became the first single. You can listen to it here on her website, to those who haven’t heard it already. It also sounds a little like Get Some Sleep- it has a really similar drum beat which is instantly recogniseable, or it is if you’re as obsessive as me. Overall I don’t think I like this one as much as I do like Get Some Sleep, though, because GSS has some imagery that really really really works for me- “stranded in June/Whistling my favourite tune” “Reading out the horoscopes and using up our jokes” “Stand on the moon/find the light of my living room”** While Winning Arrow is… well… maybe a tad trite, in that really really really superior to anything else style Bic has. “Casting a line to you/Love is a winning arrow/fired straight and true to/wherever you are”. Did like some stuff though- “dance on the morning dew” etc.
Anyway, I haven’t got much new to say about Winning Arrow because I’d already heard it several times, so, moving right along.
2. Say After Me
Okay, Bic aficionados in the room (… is it just me? Maybe I’ll just x-post this to bic_runga_love then.) will know this one already from the Bic Runga Live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, which has absolutely beautiful, full sounds and rich background and is just really really lush. This is less lush but I think I like this particular recording more because it combines beautiful strings with some nice modern instruments like a drum kit and guitar. :P There are some lyrics that I’m picking up more now because I’m listening to it much more intently: “to have only days to borrow/the distance will grow. A new day/out walking cold and aimless” “love enter the fire/fire through the streets” “I’ll burn you down/before you go and break me/burn like the sun/what has become/of you and me my baby?” (OMG YW MOMENT 2.0. Does Bic ship D/R or something? Also if someone writes me fic to that…) Ahem. Anyway, this one I’ve also heard a lot before, so.
3.Listen
I liked the beginning of this instantly; I don’t know why. This track has some really cool syncopation that almost sounds like disc is skipping (uh, really hope it’s not my disc ;)) It’s a very cool song in general but difficult to describe… it begins with a strong rhyming scheme. It has quite a conversational tone but also some really lovely imagery- “You walk into a room like the sun.” Mostly I think this song is a very idyllic song, on an album and from an artist who, well, this album is full of very calm songs and I think very few of them are actually happy songs, totally; she puts some really cool twists in the backing of the music, if not the tracks. It’s the same on Beautiful Collisions, that while you have a track like Precious Things Which is ostensibly very happy it’s still a bit haunting because of that twist she puts on it, so that I’ve never thought of it as a happy song even though, okay, “precious precious things/you are the thought that makes me sing/Wanna leave all my possessions/It’s a rare and precious precious thing.” Anyway, there’s none of that twist here.
4. Birds
This song has really strong, beautiful imagery, and you know that’s my thing, people; “never mind what people say/talking is thoughtless and cheap” “and thoughts arrive like [unclear] on the page/trying and hoping to be/you and I like birds in the cage/dreaming how once we were free.” It also has beautiful haunting instrumental with slightly South Asian sounding influences- in some ways it reminds me of the Doordashan remix of Drive but much more subtle. I think there are elements of this throughout all of the more instrumental songs, especially in the second half. (elements of this throughout more instrumental tracks.)
5. Ruby Nights
This has- my first word was a “retro” sound, but I don’t know that’s quite right. It kind of sounds like looking at a sepia photograph or listening to an old record, it’s been really interestingly produced. On top of this it has some fascinating imagery that’s almost magical and, to me, not really characteristic of Bic: “Only cloudy demons in the sky” “the calling of the tune/the sowing of the song/into the ruby night.” I think it’s also VERY experimental, maybe the most on the album.
6. No Crying No More
Okay, remember The Be All and End All from Beautiful Collisions, which sort of comes out of nowhere and sounds like a cowboy song? This is like that, only more so. It’s short and sweet and maybe my favourite song on the album because it’s very spare, just Bic’s voice and one, maybe two guitars. It recalls to me one of my favourite things about good modern music, which is experimental exploring of different genres of music- okay, I’m going to make two comparisions. When I was given the new Goldenhorse album, Out of the Moon, I didn’t like it at first; it had to grow on me because most of that album is so different from “popular” music today. One thing that did stand out to me, though, was the Cowgirl’s Lament- which, like No Crying No More, is a surprise country song out of nowhere. It’s cool. And it reminds me of, and this is a new concept to me, it sorts of reminds me of Firefly, which is describe as cowboys in space, right? So it’s this mixing of genres and trying to find out how they work in a new setting, and I think it’s great how that’s happening in good television and everything.
7. If I had you
Peaceful, gentle, rocking. Very reminiscent of a lot of Beautiful Collisions. Quite traditional, I guess, but still lovely, with all of Bic’s strengths. :D
8.Captured
Mmmmph… it has some similarities to If I had You. Drum beat reminds me of Delight which really had to grow on me, so, who knows? Kind of cool resonant backing vocals. But in my opinion it’s not terribly tuneful... Worth turning up quite loud to catch really quiet strings in background. In ways, this one’s maybe experimenting with layers of sounds.
9. That’s Alright
Interesting, fun and very quirky guitar and drum tunes through here. Clear high flutelike vocals- the subject matter’s like She Left on a Monday, and the tune sounds a little like Close The Door, Put Out The Light Also sounds a lot like some of her very early stuff on Drive, but more mature and full sounding (okay, I really like the spare sound of Drive. But richness is also good, as we see on the Bic Runga live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, plus it employs people in the music industry ;) ) This is a putative next single. If this isn’t it, it’ll probably the next one, which is my current favourite.
10. Blue Blue Heart
Reminds me a lot of Welcome to My Kitchen which is AWESOME obscure track. It’s dominated by a hard chord beat on the piano, and it’s much faster that almost everything else on this CD. Really really cool. Slow music in general is not my thing, although for Bic of course the exception is made. “I loved you in my sleep”- it’s again kind of cowboy/country/whatever but modernised. V cool.
11. It’s Over
Sounds a LOT like “Anyone Who Had a Heart” from CSO but with less symphony orchestra and more backing vocals. The whole album could be described a lot like that, actually. :P “We’ve had a long day in the sun/and maybe now it’s over/and nothing can be done”—very Bic subject matter- kind of cool waltzy interludes in there (DUM dum-dum DUM dum-dum DUM dum-dum)- can’t really describe what it sounds like but definitely like SOMETHING anyway. Kind of like eerie doll/puppet/ballerina music? Anyway, it’s neat, but you have to be listening for it- you really have to be listening to this album to listen to the album, in a lot of ways- I think it’d do okay as background music but you’d never learn to love it, really love it, unless you listened to it at least once on its own. So do that.
This is just a preliminary reviewish thinky thing, so don’t take it too seriously, okey dokey? And a quick recommendation: like so much of Bic’s opus, this albums is best listened to in silence and turned up quite loud, so you can hear everything, at least for the first hearing or so. Um, this will contain spoilers for Birds, if you, you know, believe in spoilers for music. I know I prefer to listen to an album firsthand before reading reviews and things so… Anyway, first I’ll blether for a bit about the album as a whole, and then I’ll go through it track by track and say something about each of them. Okay? Okay.
Disclaimer: All the lyrics quoted here from Birds come directly from my own hearing, as there’s no lyric resource around; if you’re hearing it differently do mention it. Lyrics quoted from Beautiful Collision and Drive come from www.bicrunga.com. All the lyrics quoted herein are the property of Bic Runga: go out and buy the CD, it’s really worth it. I LOVE it.
Gonna start with some rambling; I’d love to do a coherent review but I’m no good at that sort of thing, so instead I’ll point you to this one at www.bicrunga.net.nz, which is the Sunday Star Times review, which is nice and comes to many of the same conclusions I do, but more coherently and with Experienced Music Reviewer cred. :P
Firstly, some things about the recording of this album: non-Kiwis won’t recognise the fact that this album is practically festooned with Very Important New Zealand Musicians, like Neil Finn of the Finn Brothers and also Crowded House (even Americans have heard of Crowded House!); Anika Moa and Shayne Carter; Marc Taddei, who’s a conductor of symphony orchestras and things; and a couple of others. Then, it was recorded and all in a mere two months, August/September 2005, in a big old house up in Auckland. Obviously it was written before that, but still… that’s pretty fast. There are some extra tidbits about it here, for those interested.
Secondly, this album definitely continues a lot of the trends that Beautiful Collision took after Drive; the tracks are all much more highly layered and see a lot of instruments in the background. It’s also a lot slower and less poppy than Beautiful Collision; overall it reminds me of Bic Runga Live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, which is rich and lush and beautiful, but without the symphony. :P Although there are some tracks which make excellent use of a string group, conducted by the aforementioned Marc Taddei, who is HILARIOUS. And also a great conductor. But it is slower overall- even Winning Arrow, which is supposedly the poppy song of the album, is a lot slower than Get Some Sleep, which is its equivalent on BC. Um, in some ways the whole thing, the song which most fits on it from her previous stuff would be “Dust”, which is this kind of obscure track from, umm, I think the special edition disc to Drive.
The songs are long- It’s an eleven-track album with 46 minutes, which is, for those playing at home, more than four minutes per track; which is a definite change as most of her songs, I think, are sort of reasonably short. Nevertheless it’s still quite a short album, possibly because of its comparatively short gestation period. They also explore more interesting rhythms and beats than she’s used previously; I think in some ways it’s quite experimental and creative, in the same way that say Goldenhorse’s (a NZ band, very awesome) recent album Out of the Moon is. There’s a lot of use of backing vocals- Anika Moa, Shayne Carter and Anna Coddington, along with a few others- which kind of remind me of… well, I have this image in my head of three girls in a row with microphones like on those old bands, you know? Even though the music itself isn’t similar to that.
Anyway. Um, I guess that’s all I have to say on the thing as a whole, or something- like I said, I wish I could do a proper review but, well, can’t. So! Onto a track-by-track blether!
1. Winning Arrow
Like Beautiful Collision, Birds starts with a relatively straightforward, reasonably poppy song (on BC, this was Get Some Sleep) that became the first single. You can listen to it here on her website, to those who haven’t heard it already. It also sounds a little like Get Some Sleep- it has a really similar drum beat which is instantly recogniseable, or it is if you’re as obsessive as me. Overall I don’t think I like this one as much as I do like Get Some Sleep, though, because GSS has some imagery that really really really works for me- “stranded in June/Whistling my favourite tune” “Reading out the horoscopes and using up our jokes” “Stand on the moon/find the light of my living room”** While Winning Arrow is… well… maybe a tad trite, in that really really really superior to anything else style Bic has. “Casting a line to you/Love is a winning arrow/fired straight and true to/wherever you are”. Did like some stuff though- “dance on the morning dew” etc.
Anyway, I haven’t got much new to say about Winning Arrow because I’d already heard it several times, so, moving right along.
2. Say After Me
Okay, Bic aficionados in the room (… is it just me? Maybe I’ll just x-post this to bic_runga_love then.) will know this one already from the Bic Runga Live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, which has absolutely beautiful, full sounds and rich background and is just really really lush. This is less lush but I think I like this particular recording more because it combines beautiful strings with some nice modern instruments like a drum kit and guitar. :P There are some lyrics that I’m picking up more now because I’m listening to it much more intently: “to have only days to borrow/the distance will grow. A new day/out walking cold and aimless” “love enter the fire/fire through the streets” “I’ll burn you down/before you go and break me/burn like the sun/what has become/of you and me my baby?” (OMG YW MOMENT 2.0. Does Bic ship D/R or something? Also if someone writes me fic to that…) Ahem. Anyway, this one I’ve also heard a lot before, so.
3.Listen
I liked the beginning of this instantly; I don’t know why. This track has some really cool syncopation that almost sounds like disc is skipping (uh, really hope it’s not my disc ;)) It’s a very cool song in general but difficult to describe… it begins with a strong rhyming scheme. It has quite a conversational tone but also some really lovely imagery- “You walk into a room like the sun.” Mostly I think this song is a very idyllic song, on an album and from an artist who, well, this album is full of very calm songs and I think very few of them are actually happy songs, totally; she puts some really cool twists in the backing of the music, if not the tracks. It’s the same on Beautiful Collisions, that while you have a track like Precious Things Which is ostensibly very happy it’s still a bit haunting because of that twist she puts on it, so that I’ve never thought of it as a happy song even though, okay, “precious precious things/you are the thought that makes me sing/Wanna leave all my possessions/It’s a rare and precious precious thing.” Anyway, there’s none of that twist here.
4. Birds
This song has really strong, beautiful imagery, and you know that’s my thing, people; “never mind what people say/talking is thoughtless and cheap” “and thoughts arrive like [unclear] on the page/trying and hoping to be/you and I like birds in the cage/dreaming how once we were free.” It also has beautiful haunting instrumental with slightly South Asian sounding influences- in some ways it reminds me of the Doordashan remix of Drive but much more subtle. I think there are elements of this throughout all of the more instrumental songs, especially in the second half. (elements of this throughout more instrumental tracks.)
5. Ruby Nights
This has- my first word was a “retro” sound, but I don’t know that’s quite right. It kind of sounds like looking at a sepia photograph or listening to an old record, it’s been really interestingly produced. On top of this it has some fascinating imagery that’s almost magical and, to me, not really characteristic of Bic: “Only cloudy demons in the sky” “the calling of the tune/the sowing of the song/into the ruby night.” I think it’s also VERY experimental, maybe the most on the album.
6. No Crying No More
Okay, remember The Be All and End All from Beautiful Collisions, which sort of comes out of nowhere and sounds like a cowboy song? This is like that, only more so. It’s short and sweet and maybe my favourite song on the album because it’s very spare, just Bic’s voice and one, maybe two guitars. It recalls to me one of my favourite things about good modern music, which is experimental exploring of different genres of music- okay, I’m going to make two comparisions. When I was given the new Goldenhorse album, Out of the Moon, I didn’t like it at first; it had to grow on me because most of that album is so different from “popular” music today. One thing that did stand out to me, though, was the Cowgirl’s Lament- which, like No Crying No More, is a surprise country song out of nowhere. It’s cool. And it reminds me of, and this is a new concept to me, it sorts of reminds me of Firefly, which is describe as cowboys in space, right? So it’s this mixing of genres and trying to find out how they work in a new setting, and I think it’s great how that’s happening in good television and everything.
7. If I had you
Peaceful, gentle, rocking. Very reminiscent of a lot of Beautiful Collisions. Quite traditional, I guess, but still lovely, with all of Bic’s strengths. :D
8.Captured
Mmmmph… it has some similarities to If I had You. Drum beat reminds me of Delight which really had to grow on me, so, who knows? Kind of cool resonant backing vocals. But in my opinion it’s not terribly tuneful... Worth turning up quite loud to catch really quiet strings in background. In ways, this one’s maybe experimenting with layers of sounds.
9. That’s Alright
Interesting, fun and very quirky guitar and drum tunes through here. Clear high flutelike vocals- the subject matter’s like She Left on a Monday, and the tune sounds a little like Close The Door, Put Out The Light Also sounds a lot like some of her very early stuff on Drive, but more mature and full sounding (okay, I really like the spare sound of Drive. But richness is also good, as we see on the Bic Runga live with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra recording, plus it employs people in the music industry ;) ) This is a putative next single. If this isn’t it, it’ll probably the next one, which is my current favourite.
10. Blue Blue Heart
Reminds me a lot of Welcome to My Kitchen which is AWESOME obscure track. It’s dominated by a hard chord beat on the piano, and it’s much faster that almost everything else on this CD. Really really cool. Slow music in general is not my thing, although for Bic of course the exception is made. “I loved you in my sleep”- it’s again kind of cowboy/country/whatever but modernised. V cool.
11. It’s Over
Sounds a LOT like “Anyone Who Had a Heart” from CSO but with less symphony orchestra and more backing vocals. The whole album could be described a lot like that, actually. :P “We’ve had a long day in the sun/and maybe now it’s over/and nothing can be done”—very Bic subject matter- kind of cool waltzy interludes in there (DUM dum-dum DUM dum-dum DUM dum-dum)- can’t really describe what it sounds like but definitely like SOMETHING anyway. Kind of like eerie doll/puppet/ballerina music? Anyway, it’s neat, but you have to be listening for it- you really have to be listening to this album to listen to the album, in a lot of ways- I think it’d do okay as background music but you’d never learn to love it, really love it, unless you listened to it at least once on its own. So do that.
