Armchair Apocrypha, released March 20, 2007 on Fat Possum (North America), Fargo Records (France), and Spunk Records (Australia) is Andrew’s 7th studio album. It was recorded mainly in Minneapolis at Crazy Beast Studios (Ben Durrant) and Third Ear Studios (Tom Herbers). A cast of collaborators was drawn from the surrounding music scene: Drummer and keyboard player Martin Dosh, singer Haley Bonar, bassist Chris Morrissey, and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Ylvisaker (who, along with Dosh, now features in Andrew’s live lineup) added their talents to the album, which was mixed at the famed, haunted Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. The album opens with “Fiery Crash,” which Bird describes as a superstitious incantation to protect him from plane crashes (“just a nod to mortality before you get on the plane”). As the album progresses, songs of “Dark Matter” (“do you wonder where the self resides, is it in your head or between your sides, and who will be that one who will decide its true location?), “Heretics” and “Plasticities” are sung with humor and lightness that belies their lyrical depth. “Scythian Empire,” amid lush pizzicato violin, considers an obscure corner of history and its lost civilizations, and apocalyptic horsemen. And so it goes, through to the final notes of “Yawny at the Apocalypse,” with varied and stunning musical tapestries embellished with lyrical vignettes and musings that veer fluidly from almost childlike innocence to seasoned, darkly comic wit, with unexpected twists at every turn.
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