Each day in December, I’ll be reflecting back on a song from the 2000’s. The decade saw the return of post-punk and the popularization of folk music, all while some of music’s biggest acts gained their indie footing. Thankfully, it’s a period that I can look back at fondly without cringing. #31DaysOf2000sSongs
I didn’t discover the world of Andrew Bird until he was about eight studio albums into his brilliant career. It might be one of my deepest musical regrets. That was a lot of time lost that I could’ve spent pouring through his prolific canon, dissecting album after album, all while whistling along in unison. I missed a ton of shows that would’ve allowed me to hear live renditions of some of his earlier material. Luckily, however, when I caught Bird at Terminal 5 in 2016 I got to hear him play this beauty of a track, “Imitosis”.
Bird’s music covers a wide range of genres, but his base has always been the use of a variety of stringed instruments with a folk rock demeanor. The other more well-known track off of Armchair Apocrypha was “Plasticities” which showcased Bird’s more experimental rock tendencies. This made “Imitosis” stick out like a sore thumb because, if anything, it was a tango. The bass, drums, guitar and violin do what they can to recreate a hot summer night in Argentina. But the ringer was the Glockenspiel, the instrument that gave “Imitosis” its playful character and soul.
“What was mistaken for closeness, was just a case of mitosis.”