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SXSW review: The Wooden Birds
(9 p.m. Saturday, the Parish)
After his six-year sojourn in Brooklyn, it’s good to have Andrew Kenny home.
As the leader of Austin’s indie sensation American Analog Set, Kenny built a devoted underground following with his soft-spoken, rustling anthems.
And as fans learned at Saturday’s Barsuk/Merge Records showcase at the Parish, he’s picking up right where he left off with the aptly named Wooden Birds. Much like the songs of the Analog Set’s “Know By Heart,” the new tunes are delicate and organic, with a keen attention paid to intricate detail. Backed by brushed drums and a second percussionist who mostly shakes maracas and tambourines, the songs drift through smooth clean guitar and Kenny’s near-whispered vocals, creating a dreamlike atmosphere.
The simple yet sharp observational nature of the lyrics matched the powerfully understated music, as entire stories were often brewing beneath single stanzas. In set opener “Sugar,” Kenny noted, “Your little brother is a little shy/He keeps a Bible by his bedside/Under a bottle and some dim lamplight.” And in the more upbeat “Seven Seventeen,” he realized, “She was seven when I was seventeen.”
Kenny’s persona couldn’t fit the songs any better. The lanky, bright-eyed and thin-faced bass player bent his knees and grooved his hips to the beat of the midtempo numbers, and when each one was done, he’d turn to his four-piece band and meekly pay them compliments like, “That was pretty good, guys. Great job.”
To the glee of Analog Set fans, the Wooden Birds included a performance of “Aaron and Maria” in their set, but judging by the strength of the new music, they won’t have to rely on old material for long.
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