Tracklist:

1. I Move
2. The Ukranians
3. Six O'Clock Whispers
4. Welcome to Echo Valley, Saskatchewan
5. Being Away Fame (A Song for the Xenophobic)
6. I Think I Know That Kind of Feeling
7. A Call From Curtis
8. Me, Arden, and Iran-Contra
9. Nothing Ever Is (In Two Parts)
10. Everything Always Is
11. 1986
12. A Call From Ghislain
13. Wishing I Lived Near Water
14. It's Always Raining In Dublin
15. A Call From Emm
16. Cross-Crab Apple Tree
17. When We Were Young
18. It’s Not the Brown That Makes Your Eyes So Pretty

Winnipeg’s Bryce Kushnier is the man behind Vitaminsforyou and The Legend of Bird’s Hill is his second full-length album for Intr_Version. Fellow Intr_Version artist Ghislain Poirier, Emm Gryner, and a few other Canadian artists contributed on the album and together they have created a record full of rich electronic sounds that are often undeniably pleasing to the ear.

Kushnier’s electronic palette of sounds has certainly grown since the 2003 release of I’m Sorry Forever and For Always. While that release was an interesting electronic experiment it never seemed quite fully realized. Each track was always a few steps away from actually taking the form of a song. Here, though, everything has finally come together, often to mesmerizing effect.

Two of the album’s most impressive highlights come very early on as “The Ukranians” and “Six O’Clock Whispers” play back to back. Both tracks are a testament to Kushnier’s mastery of the electronic pop form. “The Ukranians” bright, danceable melody is only heightened by the few lines Kushnier blissfully whispers. The track then breaks down mid-song with chimed percussion and a slick turntable schism. A thick electronic bass line is added before the rest of the sounds rush back into the mix as Kushnier repeats lines such as “take me to the river/ where the land meets the sea”. By the time the track ends it feels good to be alive.

While reading about Vitaminsforyou, mentions of The Postal Service never hit me as valid comparisons aside from the fact that both projects are electronic and the vocals are sometimes comparable. On “Six O’Clock Whispers”, however, such an allusion makes quite a bit of sense. Kushnier’s soft, shy voice is backed by a cute blinking melody and eventually Emm Gryner joins in to trade lines and the result is a track that is just as infectious as any radio-friendly Postal Service hit.

Not everything on The Legend of Bird’s Hill, however, is so affable. “1986” is a lesson in time (about seven minutes) and patience as it needs to both to fully unfold. Like many tracks on the album there are so many different sounds involved that it’s difficult to pinpoint any of them singularly, and maybe that’s the way it should be.

Still, The Legend of Bird’s Hill isn’t perfect. The biggest challenge to overcome here is the album’s length. At over an hour and ten minutes long, the listener might find it difficult to give the album the undivided attention it deserves. I always seemed shocked enough to point out when an album is only 30 to 35 minutes long, but perhaps it’s more important to make note of an album that’s overly long. After all, we live in a society with a three minute attention span where TV shows are often relegated to 2 minute snippets of car chases and if someone can’t click in the direction they want to go and arrive within milliseconds they don’t have the time for it.

Even I found it straining to listen to the album in its entirety without becoming distracted by other business. This is a disappointing thought to consider because the album truly does lend itself to being listened to as a whole. While a few tracks do standout on their own and can thus be played singularly (the aforementioned “The Ukranians”, “Six O’clock Whispers”) many of them don’t encourage it. When listened to in its entirety it flows beautifully and feels well sequenced. And with an album so rich in sound if it becomes easily ignorable around track ten the listener is going to miss out on quite a bit.

These problems seem to be ambitious in nature and, on the whole, fairly forgivable. Bryce Kushnier does what he does well and on The Legend of Bird’s Hill he does it better than he ever has before.

MP3 Samples:
The Ukranians
Six O’Clock Whispers

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 10:01 am and is filed under Record Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.