Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs

His beginnings as a violinist long behind him, Chicago-born Andrew Bird has been sculpting ever more complex and convincing musical worlds since his first album in 1997. On his fifth release, Bird offers up no answers to the mysteries in the world around us, but does take on the thornier elements with poetic verve. The instrumentation is bracingly inventive, but never for mere shenanigans or showmanship. The songs are each a perfectly formed vignette. And he's a world class whistler; not the loud summoning blast, but the supple and nuanced vibrato-laced melodicism of a master. There is no shortage of utterly riveting songs here. They work their magic on their own believable terms, without a hint of cloying nostalgia or riff-fueled seduction. - David Greenberger

Andrew Bird is a previously unimaginable combination of songwriter, violinist, guitarist, vocalist and whistler. His unfailingly unique and striking music has been dumbfounding us for years. Bird's first studio album in nearly two years, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, is his second on Righteous Babe Records. The album follows Weather Systems, his critically-acclaimed mini-LP, released in spring 2003.

The recording sessions for Mysterious Production saw Bird scrap the album three times and travel between studios in Chicago, Los Angeles and his own home studio on a farm in Northern Illinois. The album took final shape with the production help of David Boucher, whose credits include Paul Westerberg, Lisa Loeb, and Randy Newman. Bird plays most of the instruments on Mysterious Production, and is joined by a handful of special guests complimenting his already lush sonic palette. The results are magnificent, a powerhouse of a record dealing with nothing less than the mysteries of childhood, creativity and modern science - epic in scope and minute in detail.

Equally impressive is Bird's solo live show at which, with the aid of a sampling pedal, the songwriter takes his often dense, orchestrated recordings and rewrites them anew each night, adding hypnotic layers of instruments to his vocals and other-worldly whistling - you have to see it to believe it.