Usually if you tell someone that you’re interested in buying an album of birdsong, you’ve every reason to expect to be stabbed in the neck by a mob of outraged music-lovers. Up until now, Bill Oddie has been the only person who can be excused for buying a CD of birdsong, since a) he likes Prince, b) he’s got a drumkit in his house and c) a cow pissed on his face live on breakfast TV once. And unless those three things apply to you, you can’t be afforded the same forgiveness.
That is, unless it’s The Birds by Andy Sheppard that you’re buying. Andy Sheppard is one of those rare creatures, a British musician who has made a giant impact on the international jazz scene, and The Birds is testament to his talent. Rumour has it that The Birds came into being when Andy Sheppard decided to see where he could take his collection of natural field-taped birdsong recordings musically; and just like birdsong itself, The Birds by Andy Sheppard is a wonderfully diverse collection of tunes. But what does it sound like?
Once you’re locked into the kind of thing you’ll be getting from The Birds, the songs within act as a constant drip-feed of secrets and hidden avenues that you just don’t hear first time round. Take The Birds opener, Float. Although birdsong is the one constant, Andy Sheppard dazzles the listener to such a treasure trove of influences – from Music For Airports-era Eno to Kraftwerk to Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks score – that you’re still discovering dreamy new aspects to it after your play-count has hit double figures.
And this is a trick that The Birds by Andy Sheppard plays time and time again – and by keeping birdsong as the bed for all the tracks to lay on, it gives Andy Sheppard the space to take The Birds wherever he wants. So Slow Blackbird sounds strange at first – there’s a deep exotic cowlike bird calling away amongside the birds you’re more likely to hear in your garden – but everything snaps into place with the introduction of some Get Carter tablas, which Andy Sheppard uses to spin the song off into something that sounds like something from a late Curtis Mayfield album.
Next on The Birds are Golden Oriole and Bird Elements, where Andy Sheppard first accompanies a twittering bird and then imitates it. It’s something that could easily go arse-up and turn into wank, but in Sheppard’s hands it becomes almost Shuggie Otis-like, twisting and turning in on itself until it creates its own fanfare of sorts. Just when you think Andy Sheppard can’t top that moment, he yanks Seyak The Butcherbird out of the bag; a simple call-and-response with a bird that becomes an Afrobeat monster in the blink of an eye. Seyak The Butcherbird is one of the highlights of The Birds , along with D.C, one of the most spine-tinglingly accurate representations of the dawn chorus you’re ever likely to hear, with Sheppard’s saxophone always a presence but never an intrusion.
Without ever settling on one specific mood, The Birds by Andy Sheppard somehow manages to welcome the listener into its deep groove, but that’s something you can hear for yourself. Not only do we have a tiny demo of The Birds by Andy Sheppard for you to try out, but we’re also giving you the chance to get your hands on a splendid MP3 album that you install and play on your computer, import into iTunes and load onto your MP3 player or burn onto CD and print out the accompanying artwork and sleevenotes.
But that’s The Birds by Andy Sheppard – an album which is almost enough to make us calm down and stop taking the piss out of famous people for a while. Almost.
