With new music coming out every day, everyone’s bound to let a band slip past them on accident but boy, am I sad to have had this happen with Mimicking Birds. Although they released their self-titled album back in March, I only scratched the surface and listened to a couple of songs on their MySpace a while back. I had no doubt that they were a good band but it wasn’t until I saw them live at Lollapalooza that I was blown away by this Portland, Oregon-based trio.
As if I had set up the most cliché scenario, I walked from the media area and out onto the Grant Park grounds around 11:45 am on the third day of the festival and stood in slight rain just to see what that this band was like live. To be honest, I was very grouchy from the rain and I had to wear my flip-flops until I could get the back of my ankles bandaged up in order to wear real shoes. There was mud everywhere and I was not happy with how the grass and dirt jumped up onto the back of my legs. However, once I just focused on the sound coming from the stage, my agitated state just… melted away. All of a sudden the light rain was a perfect touch and I transformed from this cranky music blogger taking things for granted to a fan standing in awe. This could be one of the most predictable storylines of music fan meets band but this is what truly happened. This is how I was reintroduced to Mimicking Birds. It was only then that I realized I had seen tons of PR e-mails boasting a new client called Mimicking Birds but I didn’t give those golden mp3s enough of a chance. It all got lumped into the “mark as read” e-mails I force myself to do every once in a while in order to have a clean inbox.
Yes, I am quite upset with myself for that. But now that I’ve listened to their album which was produced by Modest Mouse’s very own Isaac Brock and also released on his label, Glacial Pace, I’m just glad I’ve taken the time to let those quivering yet intimately triumphant vocals wrap around my ear drums and bounce in between the sparse acoustic guitar-based arrangements. (Wine really helps with this by the way, but it’s definitely not necessary.) It’s quite impressive to know that lead singer, Nate Lacy, started all this beauty in his bedroom because it has now flourished into a full sound with the help of Tim Skellinger and Aaron Hanson. The most remarkable part is in the fact that even with additional band members, the full sound still has a fragile nakedness to it. Brock’s influence on the album is present (you can hear him on “Burning Star”) but for a debut project, it goes so much deeper than expected.
Just take a listen to “The Loop” below and get lost in the intricacy of it all. It’s soft but it’s powerful. Just because one artist who made himself a recluse and recorded an album out in the woods during winter (Bon Iver) definitely does not mean another artist or band can’t have the same effect coming from a different approach.
WILD TONIC 