Multi-instrumentalist and singer Andrew Bird has today released Outside Problems across both CD + LP.
The collection of nine fleeting, expansive moments of instrumental improvisation and melodic exploration make up an album that captures the sound of music in everyday life. Similar to the creation process behind his environment-based Echolocations series, Bird recorded Outside Problems primarily outdoors, amidst the mountains and orange groves of Ojai, CA. As both a precursor and extension of the world he’s built and pondered throughout this latest chapter of his perennially prolific career, Outside Problems planted the seeds to many of the songs, thoughts and complex questions that fill 2022’s Inside Problems.
‘Outside Problems’ arrangements and motifs on tracks like “Epilogue,” “Mormon House Party,” “Tik Tok” and more evolved into themes that Bird would continue to refine across Inside Problems, as Andrew Bird explains:
“There are two notable things about this album. One, none of these songs were recorded with the intent of making an album, I just happened to capture moments of melodic exploration over a period of time. You can hear themes from Inside Problems throughout the album, including on the song ‘Epilogue,’ just without concern for bridges and choruses and the band. I’m able to capture the sound of music in everyday life, a surprisingly hard thing to do. I was playing for the joy of it and to get these ideas out of my head. To hear them in a room.
There is no room. Second, these pieces were recorded primarily outside in Ojai, CA. I’m no stranger to recording outside as with the Echolocations series. My plan was to record Inside Problems outside but the leaf-blowers made that difficult…Deep in the pandemic, far from the city and album campaigns and Instagram strategies, getting back to the original point of it all.”
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