Experimentalist Ben Vida has just expanded the roster of his solo project, Bird Show, to make room for a more improvisational, freewheeling sound.Built from synths, acoustic bass, and drums, this stuff sounds like a forgotten jazz/krautrock mating ritual. It shoots for the psychedelia of Soft Machine, but still manages to come off reserved and focused.The Bird Show Band's latest LP is self-titled

Here we go again... I'm a bit late with TTYN this week thanks to connectivity issues, but here we are finally with this week's post. Before I let you go download just a quick rant. I was reading an article about Milli Vanilli and how it's been 20 years since they won the Grammy, lost the Grammy, lost their career, and then were essentially exiled from music. What's interesting to consider is that if they were around now, would anyone even care that they didn't sing those songs? The domination [...]
Great things happen when you least expect it. For example, when we began piece together this week's edition of the Friday Mixtape, we never thought it would turn out to be one of the best ever. Sure, we assumed this week's mix, which features the best new singles, remixes, covers, and mp3s from some up-and-comers you just might want to check out, would be good. But this good? Nah! Enjoy! NEW Singles: "Let's Go Fucking Mental" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre "Home" [...]

Bird Show Band released the new self/titled album, Bird Show Band CD/LP/Digital, on January 26, 2010. Stream and download the new song Quintet Four on Greenshoelace.com

This is quite a different Bird Show from the last time we encountered Ben Vida's long running project. Veering away from his constant home, Kranky Records, Vida steps away from the lone swordsman approach to his writing. With just a bit of his early drone and clatter based work cropping up in the interludes on this album, the key phrase here Bird Show Band . The sections, mostly labeled "Quintet (1-4) and one labeled "Quartet" allow Vida to surround himself with talented hive of musicians who've formerly associated themselves with Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke, Hamid Drake and countless others. This [...]
You know it, we know it (though sometimes we're too wordy for our own good), nowadays it's best to just streamline the message, and our message is this: we get lots of submissions from various artists, labels, and PR folk, and it's honestly impossible to stay on top of it all. There's a ton of good music out there, and the following five bands are just some of the latest to jump out from our inbox; now, we pass them on to you in the simplest format we know: 5 + 5 = 10. Five bands, five songs, 10 words [...]

After yesterday's all-too-easy HypeClouding experiments (also here ), back to the MP3 grindstone: not such a chore, though, when we're trading in burbling kraut-ish post-jazz backed by a Tortoise percussion duo... Bird Show Band > Quintet Four (from Bird Show Band , Amish ) [...]

auf den fünften solorelease müsste man wohl tippen, wollte man das neue werk ben vidas namens "bird show band" in seiner musikalischen vita einer bezeichnung unterwerfen. der weg zu dem mann aus brooklyn ist dabei steinig und unwegsam. ob man nun in richtung seiner bandarbeiten - town and country, singer, central falls, pillow usw. - blickt oder aber bei seiner solotätigkeit hängen bleibt, ein leichter schleier umfängt das oeuvre. lichten wird es vielleicht, konzentriert man sich auf jene alben, da er unter eigenem namen (das erste werk 2000 auf boxmedia hieß "mpls.") oder unter dem moniker bird show "green inferno" [...]