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Birds and Buildings: Multipurpose Trap

Progressive Rock/Fusion

4.0/5.0

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Emkog Records
by Craig Hartranft,  12.06.2013

Coming out of left field to tickle your ears and mess with your musical mind is the wacky, whimsical, and wonderful Birds and Buildings with their second album, Multipurpose. This Washington DC based band blends everything from rock to jazz, symphonic to avant garde, music to create clever and entertaining concoction of progressive rock fusion.

They do it with a bunch of instruments, too, including violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute, guitars from traditional electric to banjo and sitar and, of course, bass, keyboards and drums. Shifting tempos and odd time signatures rule the day, making most arrangements both quizzically head-scratching and undeniably ear candy sweet. And then there's vocals, if you want to call them that. Every song has a few lines of lyrics, which are basically muted and incoherent. There are words in the CD's booklet, but because you can't understand what they're singing, it doesn't help. The booklet itself is as quirky and inventive as the music, mostly a mass collection of discordant pictures which seem to have no association with each other or the music, with words doing the same. But it unfolds cool. And the music is pretty cool too. It's like a huge mash up of from Weather Report to Pat Metheny to King Crimson to Brand X to Sun Ra to everything in between, only more complex and perplexing. (Listen below.) If like this sort of thing or simply want to step outside of your current musical listening box (and have the extra money to burn), you should check out this album. Recommended. (You can read more about Multipurpose Trap and song details at the label's website.)

Listen, Then Buy: Birds and Buildings - Multipurpose Trap

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Coming out of left field to tickle your ears and mess with your musical mind is the wacky, whimsical, and wonderful Birds and Buildings with their second album, Multipurpose.

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