Review: La Ballade Of Lady & Bird : A Project By Keren Ann Zeidel & Bardi Johannsson

• August 17, 2010
• James Skemp
• review

I have a difficult time seeing how one can review the actual music on an album, since tastes are so personal, so I'll focus on myself.

I'm a pretty huge fan of Keren Ann's work. I started with the absolutely beautiful Nolita, then the okay La Biographie De Luka Philipse, La Disparition, and then a big shopping spree of Not Going Anywhere, Keren Ann, and Lady & Bird.

The latter featured some extremely beautiful songs. But even though I liked it, based on what I'd now collected of Keren Ann's works, I had a difficult time with La Ballade of Lady & Bird, since it seemed many of the songs were already covered elsewhere, and only a few really jumped out at me. So I kept pushing it off.

Finally I picked it up the other day, since my mind kept coming back to it, and it's truly unfortunate that I didn't realize this was a live album (I though the last two bonus tracks at the end were the only live tracks), because it was definitely a wise purchase.

Keren Ann isn't the main vocalist on every track, but that's what gives it a Lady & Bird feel to it.

Thus far, extremely happy with my purchase.

Update

One note: you may be thinking that live tracks means that the audience will feature in the tracks, in some way. Outside of one song where they start clapping early, we only hear the audience at the end of each song, the one place where they clapped early, and right before the last two tracks begin, which I assume is an encore.

After yet another listen, I also find that I neglected to mention how beautiful the orchestra is, which is unfortunate, since this is one of the major appeals of the album.

• music