New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Brooklyn-based musician John Brodeur is the New York songwriter and musician behind Bird Streets. He will be appearing with his live band at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan on October 30.
The Bird
Streets album was released on August 10 via Los Angeles record label Omnivore Recordings. The label is known primarily as a reissues label so when it releases something new, it's always tuneful and noteworthy. Bird
Streets was also recently named an NPR Slingshot artist.
The video for "Direction" has over 10K combined views - watch it at https://youtu.be/iwAsv0RXbAw. Lead single "Betting On The Sun" and the track "Carry Me" are in rotation at college and AAA stations nationwide. Additional fall tour dates include shows with Leeds, Sunflower Bean, HAERTS, and an appearance at
Wesley Stace's Cabinet Of Wonders. Shows and additional information at birdstreetsmusic.com.
Recent press quotes include:
Albumism - Bird
Streets will appeal to people of a certain age who remember when indie rock meant selling cassettes and 45s at gigs and not giving out SoundCloud addresses over Twitter. But it will also appeal to pop fans who love intricate-yet-catchy pop songs lovingly created and produced.
All
Music -- The resulting self-titled release offers a mix of warm yet punchy songs that take cues from multiple decades of rock, from classic Beatlesque chord changes and introspective '70s singer/songwriter fare to '90s indie rock. The songs on Bird
Streets are arranged with the requisite clever twists, rich harmonies, and intricate guitar work that one would expect of this union, but at his core, Brodeur is a songwriter, and in that respect his attention to craft stands above all, enhanced as it is by Falkner's deft production.
Audiophile Review -- Bird
Streets has no shortage of powerful pop gems... a most tasty slice of modern American indie rock pie.
Blurt - Brooklyn-based John Brodeur has been releasing top-shelf pop records for a number for years now, and in his current incarnation as Bird
Streets and new album Bird
Streets he's knocking the ball out of the park.
Pop Matters -- Bird
Streets shows Brodeur's growth into an introspective songwriter, while Falkner's production takes his long-established bedroom pop sound into a more fully-realized, radio-ready sound. It's a rock-solid power pop gem.
In need of a creative rebirth after years on the music-industry margins, Brodeur reached out to his friend, the producer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Falkner, to suggest they record together. The album yielded by this pairing is both fresh and familiar - a dynamic collection of introspective indie-rock and power-pop that draws liberally on the music of decades past without being bluntly nostalgic, with Brodeur's voice like an old friend you're meeting for the first time.
The name Bird
Streets springs from a tony real-estate enclave in the Hollywood Hills, which Brodeur first discovered when the recording sessions were first getting underway - but also references Brodeur's one-time hometown of Albany, N.Y., which provided the characters and inspiration for some of the album's 11 songs.
Lyrically, these songs draw heavily on internal conflict - self-doubt, anxiety, depression - with an overarching feeling of wistful resignation rather than blind optimism. Periodically difficult themes are delivered via unshakable melodies, a dichotomy that recalls the tightrope walked by artists like
Elliott Smith and
David Bazan/Pedro the Lion. In album opener "Carry Me," Brodeur celebrates "new beginnings and bitter ends" over a bright, bristling bed of electric guitars, then laments the end of a friendship that was once "tighter than Steely Dan" in the eminently catchy "Betting on the Sun." From there the album jumps between epic power-ballads ("Stop to Breathe") and British Invasion-flavored power-pop ("Thanks for Calling"), the
George Harrison-via-Radiohead melancholy of "Heal" and the grungy jangle of "Until the Crown."
After years in the making - and decades on the outside looking in - Bird
Streets is giving Brodeur a renewed creative energy, and a shot at reaching a larger audience.
