New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Nashville quintet Birdtalker released their anticipated debut album One early this summer via Sensibility Recordings/Tone Tree Music. The group's first full-length follows the success of their song "Heavy," a streaming phenomenon which has amassed over 27 million streams on Spotify alone (and counting) with no label support. The weightiness of the song's weightlessness captivated listeners who discovered the song, bringing the freshly intrigued out to see Birdtalker on their first tour last year, and whetting appetites for their full-length. Today they released the official video for "Heavy," debuted by American Songwriter who called it "a kick drum-laden anthem about self-exploration and finding connection with others."
"We gave Mollie and Gerald complete creative control over the dance," Birdtalker told American Songwriter. "A majority of the content is improvisation, while a few sections were choreographed in the moment. The idea was to manifest a kind of visual mediation on the music and lyrics through another art form. The whole process felt very true and beautiful."
Fronted by couple Zack and Dani Green, Birdtalker have cultivated a special connection with their listeners through their blend of pulsing Americana/folk/pop, honest lyrics, and breathtaking harmonies. The band's path to formation was, much like the success of "Heavy," hardly planned out. "Neither of us were in bands before we started this one," said Dani. The Greens figured out they had some harmonic alchemy early in their relationship, but neither had performed music in public before, even solo, much less imagined starting a band. Zack admits he hadn't even been much of a music lover growing up, but suddenly found himself exposed to a whole new world of music in his 20s. He began drifting towards emotionally intent acts while writing songs with his similarly newly muse-stricken spouse. In Birdtalker, you hear a combination of that utter lack of guile with the kind of songcraft it's hard to believe hasn't been cultivated from birth.
Eventually, drummer Andrew Hubright, guitarist Brian Seligman, and bassist
Jesse Baker drifted in, all careful not to talk too frequently or blatantly about incorporating as a group. Voice memos of song demos were produced, and suddenly they were a band, in everything but name or confessed intent. "We were very unintentionally doing what we were doing," laughs Dani. "Looking back, Brian and Andy had more of a vision for what we should be doing, and were probably very frustrated that they were dragging us along into becoming a band." All's well that ends collectively.
