Blog: Chewing gum for the ears

Although perhaps overshadowed by Animal Collective's release on the same day next week, Andrew Bird's upcoming album, Noble Beast , has built up a sizable amount of hype, especially with the album streaming over at NPR and leaking several days later. Even before that, Bird has been anything but shy about showing off his new material, especially live. When I saw him perform this past summer, half his concert was something of an album preview. I enjoy the idea of songs practiced live, then re-imagined or re-written before finally settling in their final recorded state, and [...]