Today, I was catching up on my blog-reading, checking out local favs Austin Town Hall, and stumbled across a cool new single from The Wooden Birds, who are a local group according to ATH. As I did a bit more digging on them, I kind of can’t believe I haven’t heard of them before. They’ve been reviewed by Pitchfork, Spin, and NPR, among many many others. Where have I been?
It turns out that The Wooden Birds are masterminded by Andrew Kenny, who has collaborated with Broken Social Scene and tons of other mellow indie rock groups. Kenny is a Texas native and has apparently recently returned to town after living in Brooklyn for several years. With the Wooden Birds, he’s cultivated a low-key, acoustic sound that still manages to move pretty well, and even actually rocks at times. A great example of that is the lead single and title track of the new album, “Two Matchsticks.”
The Wooden Birds - Two Matchsticks
With slight percussion and acoustic instrumentation, it still manages to groove pretty heavily. And where The Wooden Birds’ debut Magnolia (which I downloaded today for the first time) sometimes sounded like demos waiting to be fleshed out, this song wants for nothing else. Hopefully the rest of the album is just as good. Two Matchsticks will be released June 7th, the Wooden Birds will complete their North American tour on July 20th at The Mohawk here in Austin, and you can pick up an EP with “Two Matchsticks” and an awesome cover of Hall and Oates’ “Maneater” here for free!!