Floorbirds

Floorbirds formed in Chicago around 2002 with band members Harry Brenner, Andy Crossen, Brian Davis, and Andy Levin. When asked to describe their music, Crossen replied "...a demi-poppy, less frightening Lou Reed". Around September of 2004, the band released their first album entitled "The Sea Of Language Around Us" on Barcode Press.
The opening, not to mention the stand-out, track "Planes" pulls you in with haunting voices and melodic harmonies. The songs go from lazy pop ("Splitting Up") to uptempo beats ("Time Looks Back"). The five-track release has elements of the Beach Boys' knack for harmonies and the Beatles' experimental phase with unconventional noises. "If You Want Me Don't Be Sorry" is the most trippy song on the album with eerie vocals not quite singing along together while emersed in subtle keyboards and strange electronic noises. Each song offers a unique sound, neither sounding like the previous track.

- www.centerstagechicago.com

The Floorbirds’ front cover shows us a close-up of etchings made by years of chairs scratching across worn floorboards. The Sea of Language Around Us. The disc itself is embossed with a delicate lace pattern suggesting molecular biology or nanotechnology. Either evoke unseen hierarchies of order that sustain and uphold every day life for us human beings. The Floorbirds want us to pay attention to the beauty lost among the details. Their sound tells us this with every repeated listen. Lusciously dense, each instrument is played for its percussive value, from the snare drum’s snap to every guitar pluck’s precision to the primordial drone from which these details emerge. And then the voices. A well of Beach-Boys-ish harmony slowly rises, each note imbued with profound feeling: “Here it co-ommes…again.” It feels like a minute has elapsed before we have moved past this statement: so much energy is committed to saying so little. Perhaps this simple lyric was meant to welcome the listener to the rapture that is held within the next 22 minutes and 56 seconds of The Sea of Language Around Us. I know I’ve enjoyed that same welcome countless times.



Although it’s only five tracks long, this debut release continues to mesmerize me. The vocals are very good: I can namecheck the Beach Boys, but the Floorbirds sing in a more restrained and detached fashion than their 60’s forebears, commenting on crystalline landscapes viewed from the stratosphere. If the Beach Boys are summer, the Floorbirds are winter.



The Sea… shifts perspectives from the breathtaking sunrise that is “Planes” to the mad-dash pop of “Time Looks Back” (the vocals here actually sound like They Might Be Giants) to the wry love letter that is “Splitting Up” to the nebulous “If You Want Me Don’t Be Sorry” and then back to the magnificent send off of “Deep and Blue.” Layers of minimalist drums are added on the builds, sometimes ricocheting from the pulsing beat. Slide guitars and the occasional horn section slide in and out of range, never forcing a song to forsake its genre.



And what is the Floorbirds’ genre? My best guess is that the Floorbirds play in some sort of tribute to gods of 60’s pop. However, while the blueprints are clearly derived from the oldies, the band is clearly interpreting that era of music with some very enlightened 00’s ears. The Floorbirds gently play with tonality, throwing in slight dashes of dissonance into the mix, appropriately making it plain to us that they are fully aware of the latest in postmodern thought and music. What should I call this then? Chamber pop? 60’s revisionism? How about genius. Enjoy getting swept away by this intelligent, yet wildly romantic EP.

- www.cdreviews.com