Bobby Birdman
New Moods
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: Fryk Byt
The beauty of Bobby Birdman's New Moods is that you always get the sense that the tracks could be going in a thousand chaotic directions at once but they choose not to. Indeed, unlike most of the promising electronic breakthroughs in the past few years, New Moods is the epitome of restraint, the production simple and allowing the impassioned, dreamy vocals to do the hard work, a trick Jamie Lidell latched onto in time to finally break into the mainstream.
Sonically, New Moods' only real peer is YACHT's See Mystery Lights, from earlier this year, but the important difference is the restraint that Birdman exercises keeps his release from falling into the bloated depths much of See Mystery Lights unfortunately found itself in. "What You Say" in particular recalls the stellar YACHT single "Psychic City (Voodoo City)" stripped bare; the background cooing remains, the primal chants pop up here and there, but the kitchen sink is gone, giving Birdman's vocal the freedom to coast comfortably rather than reach out from the clutter of the background. That clutter worked for YACHT on that single, true, but "What You Say" hints at a sort of spiritual profundity that YACHT tried over and over again to reach but never really obtained.
Birdman, by contrast, makes it look all too easy. "What You Say" is followed by "Weighty Wait," an addictive track that effortlessly combines the darker moments of the Velvet Underground's eponymous third album with a Morrissey-on-codeine vocal. It's a sparse track that, in the hands of a lesser artist, would seem like mid-album filler but Birdman takes it somewhere altogether transcendent.
But don't assume Birdman is only interested in the spiritual or morbid areas of the pop catalog. After all, New Moods begins with "Only for a While," a springy number that wouldn't sound odd appearing on "Glee." Featuring a percussive bassline that could be cribbed from The Cure's "Close to Me" and a beat that's like the calmer little brother to much of M.I.A.'s Arular, "Only for a While" is the type of single that proves '80s throwback doesn't have to be instantly shudder-worthy. It helps that Birdman is gifted at adopting numerous vocal styles, with this track revealing his ability to channel Elvis Costello after voice lessons.
Further exploring the poppier end of the spectrum, "Victory at Sea" is a hodgepodge of any number of promising sounds. Production-wise it explores the type of terrain YACHT's Jona Bechtolt brought to The Blow: a Timbaland-like marching beat thrown through a Warp blender, punchy, buzzy synths. Add in the XXXChange-like vocal stutters and Birdman's own trademark Wide Open Spaces and you've got gold. Even better is "You'd Be Surprised" which sports similar production but is unique on the album in that it's the only moment in which Birdman seems willing to let himself throw in as many sounds into the mix as a he can fit. Since the rest of the album is so sparse by comparison, the effect is properly startling, allowing the song to stretch itself out and firmly capture the listener's attention. Unsurprisingly, though, the song reaches a moment of pure pop bliss around three minutes in, when nearly everything but a filtered beat and Birdman's voice drops out before the ingredients come back in so delicately that it's not even noticeable until everything abruptly ends.
New Moods is an immensely promising, rewarding work that easily stands out in a year crowded with excellent electronic releases. Given Birdman's smart sequencing of the album and its spot-on balance of more down tempo, soulful numbers and energetic, unabashedly pop tracks it also stands to reason that New Moods will be the rare hype-worthy release still standing years later.
by Morgan Davis
