A side project from the duo of singer/songwriter Keren Ann Zeidel and Bardi Johannson (lead singer of Iceland’s Bang Gang), this all-too-short concept album (38 minutes) is about two children inhabiting the bodies of grown-ups, and not wanting to go back, only to realize the whole thing was in their minds. Exploring musical roots from Lou Reed’s “Stephanie Says” and an airy rendition of “Suicide is Painless”, the theme song from M*A*S*H*, this album is both beautiful in how it experiments musically and how it incorporates eerie yet silly and amusing vocals that somehow evoke both pleasure and discomfort in the listener. The Duo presents a series of simple songs strung together by a few interludes that abuse the effects of pitch shifting and reverb to create youthful voices. From beginning to end, Lady & Bird is both light and dark mixed together, it’s soft and warm, coarse and delicate. If you are at all familiar with Keren Ann you are familiar with her delicate sounding voice that fuses well with Bardi who also has a smooth but deeper voice, which offsets Keren’s surprisingly well. Moments in the album can get almost scary as the two vocalists explore ghost-like, trippy ranges with soft and disconcerting musical accompaniment. An overall emotional roller coaster, this album demands attention through its bittersweet lyrics, eerie vocals, and painfully delicate music. By digressing into a mellower area of the indie-pop sub-genre Lady & Bird explore a level of intensity that tends to be ignored.

You can listen to tracks from the album at the band’s myspace page:

Lady & Bird Myspace