By Darryl Carter

Violinist Andrew Bird spent the 1990s with his head in the 1920s, '30s and '40s, recording vintage swing, Appalachian folk, tango and hot jazz. Now that the decade is over, Bird is catching up with the 21st Century, listening to some new pop music and creating his own version of modern rock. Not surprisingly, though, Bird's version of "modern" ends up sounding quite a bit like the 1950s and '60s. This is retro-pop progress.

That's not a criticism, by the way. The new album by Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, The Swimming Hour, is genuinely creative--by far the most inventive, and one of the most consistent efforts by one of Chicago's top talents. It's slick, catchy, learned, unpretentious and simultaneously rich in history and originality. The record makes for a great transition to a more creatively liberating format from the pre-war fascination that Bird developed as a student of music history at Northwestern University in the mid-1990s.

However, if the band's CD release party at the Metro on April 15, 2001 is any indication, the new sound also marks something of a partial death for one of Chicago's great contemporary live acts. Two members of the Bowl of Fire (acoustic bassist Josh Hirsch and acoustic guitarist Colin Bunn) left the band after helping create the new CD. Their replacements, Andy Hopkins on electric guitar and Jimmy Sutton on electric bass, are extremely capable, but some of the chemistry seemed to be missing. It's also hard not to miss the raucous jazzy old-timey fun of Bird's pre-pop shows. One can't help hoping this is not the beginning of the end for Bird's pre-rock historical re-vision.

The recording, though, benefits from the new openness to the future. Bird broke his own ban on overdubs and technological wizardry--a ban he was previously quite willing to publicize. Press copies of Bowl's last album, Oh! The Grandeur, were accompanied by a musical manifesto with two edicts: (a) all recording must be done live, preferably with one microphone, no overdubs and the whole band in one room at one time, and (b) historical styles shall not be used just because they're "cool." Musical styles shall be chosen to suit the lyrics.

Bird reportedly abandoned the first rule after finally breaking down and buying a modern pop album: The Flaming Lips' critically acclaimed lush pop CD The Soft Bulletin. For the first time in Bird's four-CD career (which includes three CDs on Rykodisc and one full-length indie called Music of Hair), The Swimming Hour features Bird singing over overdubs of his own violin. He even allows himself to form his own digital chamber orchestra. It sounds terrific.

The second rule he doesn't break. In fact, the ban on fashion-driven historicity seems to apply more to this album than any of the previous ones, since most songs fail to fit any pre-packaged stylistic format. Bird's first two records were nicely timed for a national swing craze (Bird himself was tutored in pop structure by one of the most popular swing revival bands, Squirrel Nut Zippers). It's hard not to wonder whether Bird's style change wasn't at least partially motivated by the shrinking commercial cache of neo-swing, but he's acquitted because a sound this successful shouldn't be quibbled over, and because he draws liberally from all sorts of unhip sources in this record.

For the most part, those sources are drawn from the 1950s and '60s. Bird has denied in the press steeping himself in 1960s garage music or any other particular era, but The Swimming Hour is rich with references--to 60s style garage sounds ("Two-Way Action"), electric blues ("Satisfied"), the string-soaked balladry of those decades ("Dear Old Greenland"), surfer guitar ("Way Out West"), some Johnny Cash riffs ("Way Out West" again), even a Beatleism or two. Plus there are a few outright historical items, including a couple of pre-World War II covers and the quirky, quaint waltz "Waiting to Talk."

But fear not, Birdophiles: the violinist who used to just about cover his ears to avoid hearing pop music turns out to be a very good pop artist. The album's strongest tunes are often the most original--most notably the perfectly produced, richly melodic, rythym-driven "11:11,"which contemplates the fickleness of fate with typically articulate multi-syllabic wordy word play.

As a vocalist, there's no question this is Andrew Bird's finest album to date. On both previous albums he attempted on several tracks to imitate the jokey eccentricities of the early swing artists who inspired him--eccentricities that while charming and well-suited to the styles of the songs, simply were not well-suited to his voice. This time, he sticks to the sounds he does best: smooth, flexible, rangy, reminiscent of one of modern pop's greatest vocal masters, Jeff Buckley.

On "Why?" he even pulls off an excellent Billie Holiday imitation. The vocal choice perfectly matches the masochistic lyrics, which recall Holiday's own famous proclivity for unhealthy relationships: "I thought that time would tell/My sins would provoke you to raise some hell/Not a chance/ Whatever happened to fiery romance? Oh how I wish it was the dishes you were throwing/Damn you for being so easy going." So mourn but a little the Bowl's pre-war innocence. The new stuff retains the spirit of the old. And even the most ardent purists in the crowded Metro on April 15 could console themselves that, even if the cello-bass and the acoustic guitar had been replaced by large electric equivalents, at least the Bowl of Fire is still closing every concert with the lively Cuban shuffler "Depression/Passilo."




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