REVIEWS

HEART CAVES

The WIRE

I can't tell you much about Bobby Birdman - except, of course, that it's not his real name. Heart Caves is a six track EP which veers queasily around synth pop balladry in a manner curiously reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle's stabs at the genre on 20 Jazz Funk Great. Rob Kieswetter, the man behind the moniker, is gifted (if that's the right word) with the kind of dazed, numb vocals that David Bowie affected during his time in Berlin, and while these lo-fi, grainy oddities lack the dense melancholy presence of Low - or, indeed, the subversive intent of TG - Heart Caves suggests that Kieswetter could be a cult songwriter in the making.

Filter

Thre is something going on here, and it isn't quite electronic and it isn't quite folk. Bobby Birdman (aka Rob Kieswetter, aka 'the indie rock Perry Como') has a voice as genuine as they come. His precious croon never stretches out of range, but isn't dull or montone. While his previous work relied on acoustic guitars and barroom piano to create a somber lo-fi landscape, this EP shows a leap forward in the studio. Imagine the voice David Bowie, only American and softer, backed by odd beats and click, and keyboards purchased at Alan Parsons' rummage sale. Tracks like "A Feat So Bold" are melancholy and brooding, but "I Will Come Again" is as upbeat as anything by the Pointer Sisters. If the upcoming LP shows the same range, Kieswetter will steeer some well-deserved attention towards the underground sound of the Pacific Northwest.

erasingclouds.com

Experimental pop crooner Bobby Birdman is like a Frank Sinatra for modern-day surrealists, belting out gorgeous songs of love and loneliness that are also mysterious and downright strange. With each release his songs seem to become both weirder and more romantic. His latest EP, Heart Caves , builds on the promise of his most recent, more electronic album Born Free Forever by taking guitar out of the mix almost entirely, in favor of a minimalist backdrop of crashing beats and bubbling synth. A consummate phraser, Birdman (Rob Kieswetter, actually) stretches his words across sonic landscapes both peaceful ("A Feat So Bold") and jaunty ("I Will Come Again"), in both places giving his words real presence and force. On "Gone Beyond," he sings over a light hip-hop shuffle that in a different world would be the right setting for a Bobby Birdman/Mary J Blige duet. That's followed by a synth-gospel goodbye called "Let My Burden Be" that leads into the choppy "Ultra Shape," an instrumental deconstruction of the moods of the other 5 songs. In 18 minutes, Heart Caves makes you feel like you've traveled across a vast landscape, and leaves you floating, happily.

impactpress.com

Avant-folk performer Rob Kieswetter (AKA Bobby Birdman) becomes mesmerized inside lo-fi electronic music and delivers smooth vocal harmonies reminiscent of the desperate, intimate and often disconnected world of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Only six tracks on this disc but an aura of mischievously misbehaving accompanies the synth-pop vibe and carries the mood through the late night good times and the regret that follows closely behind, all wrapped up in a kind of understanding.

tinymixtapes.com

Once again not content with repeating himself, Rob Kieswetter (aka Bobby Birdman) shifts from the pastoral/electronic sounds of the exquisite Born Free Forever (one of the strongest releases of 2003, by the way) to a fully electronic alternative that fuses the melodies of an artist like Kyle Fields (Little Wings) with Jimmy Tamborello-like electronic explorations. Although the instrumentation is a few notches apart from Born Free Forever, Birdman retains the lazy and near-lethargic songwriting that made that album such a beautiful record (Bobby Birdman is from the Pacific Northwest; did you expect anything less?) Snail-paced and replete with indelible hooks, Heart Caves is like a black and white Polaroid of the romantic flirting between the laptop and the traditional songwriting paradigms of rock. Sure, this hybridization is nothing new, but Birdman's execution is near flawless. Aside from the seamless segues and flawless mood changes, perhaps most interesting on this 6-track EP is Birdman's ability to recreate the fragility of an acoustic guitar with electronics. Every song is as delicate as an orchid, but any missed hit or unintentional note would still fit nicely in the mix. "And Then It Begins," one of the standout tracks, is a perfect example of how its looped electronics can still be deemed frail despite its repetitive, mechanical quality. Though Heart Caves is not as essential as say Born Free Forever, this EP may be a hint of things to come on the next long-player; and if that's the case, Bobby Birdman and his little wings will be flying high on the radar for years to come.

almostcool.org

Although he just dropped his Born Free Forever release earlier this year, he's already back with another short EP on a different label. Listening to the two releases side-by-side, it's pretty easy to see why he split things into two releases. If he put together too many tracks during his last sessions of recording, there was definitely a stylistic difference in the work that he was doing. Whereas his hyper-layered, almost operatic vocal tracks landed on the aforementioned disc, the Heart Caves EP is a short burst of much more electronic lounge-pop. Opening with "A Feat So Bold," things don't sound too different until the skittering beats launch behind the swirling layers of vocals and synths. The track never really launches into anything too hyper, though, as the beats come in only alternately and the whole track breaths with a woozy flow. "And Then It Begins" follows up with bursts of low-end skronk and delayed pops, while Birdman twists and wringes his vocals like never before, turning the track into a disquieting pop track that might be the most experimental (and one of the best) things he's done to date. Following right on the heels of the somewhat claustrophobic track is absolutely bopping "I Will Come Again," a casio-funk track sing-along that immediately erases the memory of the previous track. Although it may not be meant as such, the second half of the album actually feels like a deconstruction of the first half. "Gone Beyond" is a short, stuttering track where Kieswetter's vocals float over a thick bassline and jumpy beats while "Let My Burden Be" is a simple keyboard/vocal track and the closer of "Ultra Shape" takes said vocals and filters and chops them until they're only another breathy element amongst the clanging programming. It's the ultimate breakdown of his vocal stylings, but it's also probably the most interesting track on the album as his trademark croon is buried in noise and shattered into shards. In 19 minutes he shows off the most variety and talent yet, and despite a couple moments that don't work quite as well ("Let My Burden Be" in particularly drags things down quite a bit), Heart Caves EP is another solid work from a talent who seems to just be coming into his own.

BORN FREE FOREVER

Tokion

"One of those rare spine-tingling albums of epic beauty, packed with impossibly lush texture, massed vocals and dense reverb. These are modern torch songs - Elvis Costello-style piano ballads drenched in dramatic electronics and pillows of dense reverb. It all peaks with some astounding, triumphant, "standing on a cliff with the wind blowing back your long Viking hair" moments. Irresistible and essential."

-Rob Viola

GO BACK!


	REVIEWS HEART CAVES The WIRE I can't tell you much about Bobby Birdman - except, of course, that it's not his real name. Heart Caves is a six track EP which veers queasily around synth pop balladry in a manner curiously reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle's stabs at the genre on 20 Jazz Funk Great. Rob Kieswetter, the man behind the moniker, is gifted (if that's the right word) with the kind of dazed, numb vocals that David Bowie affected during his time in Berlin, and while these lo-fi, grainy oddities lack the dense melancholy presence of Low - or, indeed, the subversive intent of TG - Heart Caves suggests that Kieswetter could be a cult songwriter in the making. Filter Thre is something going on here, and it isn't quite electronic and it isn't quite folk. Bobby Birdman (aka Rob Kieswetter, aka 'the indie rock Perry Como') has a voice as genuine as they come. His precious croon never stretches out of range, but isn't dull or montone. While his previous work relied on acoustic guitars and barroom piano to create a somber lo-fi landscape, this EP shows a leap forward in the studio. Imagine the voice David Bowie, only American and softer, backed by odd beats and click, and keyboards purchased at Alan Parsons' rummage sale. Tracks like "A Feat So Bold" are melancholy and brooding, but "I Will Come Again" is as upbeat as anything by the Pointer Sisters. If the upcoming LP shows the same range, Kieswetter will steeer some well-deserved attention towards the underground sound of the Pacific Northwest. erasingclouds.com Experimental pop crooner Bobby Birdman is like a Frank Sinatra for modern-day surrealists, belting out gorgeous songs of love and loneliness that are also mysterious and downright strange. With each release his songs seem to become both weirder and more romantic. His latest EP, Heart Caves , builds on the promise of his most recent, more electronic album Born Free Forever by taking guitar out of the mix almost entirely, in favor of a minimalist backdrop of crashing beats and bubbling synth. A consummate phraser, Birdman (Rob Kieswetter, actually) stretches his words across sonic landscapes both peaceful ("A Feat So Bold") and jaunty ("I Will Come Again"), in both places giving his words real presence and force. On "Gone Beyond," he sings over a light hip-hop shuffle that in a different world would be the right setting for a Bobby Birdman/Mary J Blige duet. That's followed by a synth-gospel goodbye called "Let My Burden Be" that leads into the choppy "Ultra Shape," an instrumental deconstruction of the moods of the other 5 songs. In 18 minutes, Heart Caves makes you feel like you've traveled across a vast landscape, and leaves you floating, happily. impactpress.com Avant-folk performer Rob Kieswetter (AKA Bobby Birdman) becomes mesmerized inside lo-fi electronic music and delivers smooth vocal harmonies reminiscent of the desperate, intimate and often disconnected world of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Only six tracks on this disc but an aura of mischievously misbehaving accompanies the synth-pop vibe and carries the mood through the late night good times and the regret that follows closely behind, all wrapped up in a kind of understanding. tinymixtapes.com Once again not content with repeating himself, Rob Kieswetter (aka Bobby Birdman) shifts from the pastoral/electronic sounds of the exquisite Born Free Forever (one of the strongest releases of 2003, by the way) to a fully electronic alternative that fuses the melodies of an artist like Kyle Fields (Little Wings) with Jimmy Tamborello-like electronic explorations. Although the instrumentation is a few notches apart from Born Free Forever, Birdman retains the lazy and near-lethargic songwriting that made that album such a beautiful record (Bobby Birdman is from the Pacific Northwest; did you expect anything less?) Snail-paced and replete with indelible hooks, Heart Caves is like a black and white Polaroid of the romantic flirting between the laptop and the traditional songwriting paradigms of rock. Sure, this hybridization is nothing new, but Birdman's execution is near flawless. Aside from the seamless segues and flawless mood changes, perhaps most interesting on this 6-track EP is Birdman's ability to recreate the fragility of an acoustic guitar with electronics. Every song is as delicate as an orchid, but any missed hit or unintentional note would still fit nicely in the mix. "And Then It Begins," one of the standout tracks, is a perfect example of how its looped electronics can still be deemed frail despite its repetitive, mechanical quality. Though Heart Caves is not as essential as say Born Free Forever, this EP may be a hint of things to come on the next long-player; and if that's the case, Bobby Birdman and his little wings will be flying high on the radar for years to come. almostcool.org Although he just dropped his Born Free Forever release earlier this year, he's already back with another short EP on a different label. Listening to the two releases side-by-side, it's pretty easy to see why he split things into two releases. If he put together too many tracks during his last sessions of recording, there was definitely a stylistic difference in the work that he was doing. Whereas his hyper-layered, almost operatic vocal tracks landed on the aforementioned disc, the Heart Caves EP is a short burst of much more electronic lounge-pop. Opening with "A Feat So Bold," things don't sound too different until the skittering beats launch behind the swirling layers of vocals and synths. The track never really launches into anything too hyper, though, as the beats come in only alternately and the whole track breaths with a woozy flow. "And Then It Begins" follows up with bursts of low-end skronk and delayed pops, while Birdman twists and wringes his vocals like never before, turning the track into a disquieting pop track that might be the most experimental (and one of the best) things he's done to date. Following right on the heels of the somewhat claustrophobic track is absolutely bopping "I Will Come Again," a casio-funk track sing-along that immediately erases the memory of the previous track. Although it may not be meant as such, the second half of the album actually feels like a deconstruction of the first half. "Gone Beyond" is a short, stuttering track where Kieswetter's vocals float over a thick bassline and jumpy beats while "Let My Burden Be" is a simple keyboard/vocal track and the closer of "Ultra Shape" takes said vocals and filters and chops them until they're only another breathy element amongst the clanging programming. It's the ultimate breakdown of his vocal stylings, but it's also probably the most interesting track on the album as his trademark croon is buried in noise and shattered into shards. In 19 minutes he shows off the most variety and talent yet, and despite a couple moments that don't work quite as well ("Let My Burden Be" in particularly drags things down quite a bit), Heart Caves EP is another solid work from a talent who seems to just be coming into his own. BORN FREE FOREVER Tokion "One of those rare spine-tingling albums of epic beauty, packed with impossibly lush texture, massed vocals and dense reverb. These are modern torch songs - Elvis Costello-style piano ballads drenched in dramatic electronics and pillows of dense reverb. It all peaks with some astounding, triumphant, "standing on a cliff with the wind blowing back your long Viking hair" moments. Irresistible and essential." -Rob Viola GO BACK!