Andrew Bird seems to always be around us here. He’ll play Iowa City regularly. He’ll play a Grinnell, Iowa and a Dubuque, Iowa (the latter a place that next to no one other than Magnolia Electric Company ever plays because there aren’t many reasons to play a river city that’s just a touch too far out of the way for most sensible tour routings). He used to call Chicago home. He feels like a hybrid of native son – the way that William Elliott Whitmore does in a more tattooed manner – so we’d been pestering Andrew and his manager for well over a year to try and make this day happen. Always receptive to the idea, it just never worked its way into the logistical plans until Sept. 22 of this year and the resulting session makes it apparent just how well worth the wait it was. It wasn’t until Andrew arrived at the studio that we learned of the immense treat we were going to get on this day, with veteran indie rockers Dianogah as his backing band on two songs. The Chicago-based group has spent the better part of the last five years in a state of live performance semi-retirement, playing the odd show here and there (they’ve done just 16 shows in the U.S. since 2002; the longest tour was a 2003 jaunt through Germany, Italy and Switzerland), but mostly just letting life take over – the marriages, births and deaths as Jason Harvey puts it. The band and Bird are currently working together on a new album that will be released on Southern Records sometime next spring and the pairing is astute. The quiet nesting area that both Dianogah and Bird come from is just equivalently like breathing in brand new air mixed with the picturesque scenery. It’s the unconscious flourish of time standing still and smiling or just winking at you. Bird and the guys went on to play at the Englert Theater in Iowa City that night and we heard reports from that crowd that he told them he had a nice time with us hear. We were happy to hear it. – Sean Moeller

A song synopsis in one fell part from Mr. Andrew Bird:
So I asked my pal Jay Ryan if he and his band Dianogah would open some solo shows in Champaign and Iowa City. Daytrotter’s studio lives conveniently in between so I thought I’d ask them to back me up on these tunes. I had been attending Dianogah band practices to get ready to play on their new record. (check out A breaks B from the same session). “Lull” is my favorite. It’s the kind of song that Dianogah could have written themselves: Minimalist, a bit mathy, but warm and almost uncomfortably personal (for me, anyway). I’ve been revisiting older material lately and enjoying being more loyal to the original recordings. After four years of reinventing those songs its feels more novel to be faithful to the original. Kip, Jay and Jason really nailed this one. The set-up at Daytrotter is really conducive to recording live with beautiful, funky vintage amps and the vocal monitors all dialed in (no headphones)…. totally unfussy and anything but antiseptic, my ideal conditions. I sent my Minneapolis band of Martin Dosh and Jeremy Ylvisaker home to be with their families so having Dianogah help me play tunes like “Fiery Crash” was a treat. “Plasticities” I’ve been enjoying doing solo. The band version is so anthemic that it threatens to become a chore. Solo, I’m forced to simplify and get into the texture. The chorus gets absorbed into the verse and phrasing and tone become the dynamic. The band version can be great; it’s just the most sophisticated looping song we do, so it’s refreshing to strip it down. “The Giant of Illinois” was written by old friends of mine, Brett and Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family. They’re my favorite songwriting team and I make a point of covering one of their subtle and heartbreaking tunes every year. I changed the melody a bit. One of their other songs “Don’t be Scared” is on my album Weather Systems (along w/ “Lull”) which I wrote and partially recorded in my barn only an hour from Daytrotter studios. Look out. The rural midwest is a real sleeper.

First song
Fiery Crash (Andrew Bird) [5.81MB] [12641 downloads]


– original version appears on Armchair Apocrypha

Second song
Lull (Andrew Bird) [7.12MB] [12126 downloads]


– original version appears on Weather Systems

Third song
A Breaks B (Dianoga with Andrew Bird) [4.11MB] [12242 downloads]


B – unreleased Dianogah song
Well, it’s a song that we worked on for a long time. Jay came up with his main part and we all really liked it and we went through many different ideas before ending up with a complete song. I started to say final, but I’m not sure it’s totally done yet. I think we worked on it off and on for something like five years. Not that the result is a masterpiece…it just took a long time to come up with something that we felt was worthy of the original part Jay wrote. I’m still not sure that we did the part justice. Hopefully when we finally nail something down for the album it’ll feel like we came up with something good. In regards to meanings…I’m not sure we ever try to ascribe our instrumental songs (which are most of our songs) with specific meaning. It’s more about the feeling you get when you listen to it. Hopefully instrumental music can touch people the same way that songs with words can…at least that’s the goal. The listener has to give it some meaning. It will be on our next album, which will be out on Southern Records in May of next year.

Fourth song
Plasticities (Andrew Bird) [6.93MB] [11172 downloads]


– original version appears on Armchair Apocrypha

Fifth song

Downloads for The Giant of Illinois were capped at 2500.