BIRDS OF CHICAGO - Live From Space

Our illustrious Editor gave me a choice of three albums to review and I chose this one purely on the bands name. I have to say, I made an excellent choice, this is a great record.

Our old friend Wikipedia reveals that Birds of Chicago are a “collective based around JT Nero and Alison Russell who tour as a duo and as a full band”. You don’t need to know the bands history though to appreciate a great album, you just need to pin your ears back and listen.

What we have here is a fairly raucous live album in front of a noisy home crowd and seventeen stomping tunes that take in country, soul, do-wop, jazz, blues and a splash of good old pop. Alison possesses a fine expressive voice and she’s at home in just about any genre. JT too has a fine set of pipes and whether thumping out a country classic like “Cannonball” or melding with Alison on ‘Fever Dream‘ they are both perfect voices for this unique band.

The opening track ‘Barley’ has Alison deliver a passionate supercharged torch ballad that tells us that she’s gonna be resilient right on to the end. Many of the songs here are indeed anthems to hope and joy. In ‘Kathy’, a gorgeous, ballad sung with real passion by Alison, we hear a sad lament for a friend (or perhaps her mother?) who seems to have lost everything including her ability to play her music. She’s urged to remember Stevie Wonder and her favourite, Joni, who “came from Saskatchewan too”. The terrific mandolin playing gives it a real touch of the epic and makes it, for me, the stand-out song on an album chock full of tremendous songs.  Alison croons in French on ‘Sans Souci’ and I’m not sure what’s going on but it sounds damned saucy (it roughly translates as “No Worries”). It’s a beautiful tune that gives you a lift with its sheer joyfulness. There’s some nimble bass playing on this little ditty courtesy of Chris Merrill with Alison giving him a breathless name check as the song ends.

Elsewhere we have “North Star” that is a brooding duet and “Funeral” a strange little song that suggests that we dance into oblivion as death surrounds us (‘Hey, Pretty baby, lets shake it like somebody died’). The musicianship is superb throughout and we get a variety of musical settings that includes Alison’s distinctive clarinet playing and also some superb mandolin. Dan Abu-Absi adds some additional mandolin and classy guitar playing right across the album but on ‘Sugar Dumpling’ his playing is simply gorgeous.  

So, what we have here is one of those albums that we don’t seem to get enough of anymore. You know - the ones with excellent original songs, superb faultless musicians, fantastic voices and an exuberance that can’t be faked and only comes from a band who really loves what they are doing – I’m sure you will too.     

Words: Greg Johnson