The Elusive Mimicking Birds

Back over spring break, I attended the Modest Mouse concert in Myrtle Beach. It was amazing, of course. The opening bands, on the other hand, were hit and miss. The miss was Japanese Motors, whom I was somewhat familiar with already, but wasn't impressed with at all. Their set was dull and managed to be energetic while failing to be enthusiastic.

The hit, on the other hand, was quite a hit. The band was called Mimicking Birds, and they blew me away. Much more chill than both Japanese Motors and Modest Mouse, the contrast between sounds was a bit jarring at first, but then the music just swept everyone away.

Once I got home, I searched for the band, but not a lot was available. Their Myspace said that they had started as the solo home recordings of one Nate Lacy of Portland, Oregon. Seeing that they had no albums available, I moved on with my life and almost forgot about them.

Almost, until today, when I suddenly decided to see if they had released something in the past few months. They hadn't, but their Myspace now gave a link to a website (http://virb.com/mimickingbirds) where a whole slew of free mp3s are available. Some of them still sound like home recordings, but most are breathtakingly beautiful. Most of the songs are just Nate and his acoustic guitar, but there's other instrumentation and voices occasionally. My personal favorite right now is "Burning Stars," but there's definitely a lot more worth checking out. I'll be looking forward to a full concise album, hopefully soon.