Andrew Bird's Noble Beast

© Brandi Ediss

Andrew Bird, in studio.

In 2009 Andrew Bird was a man truly in his moment. The January release of his fifth full-length studio solo album, Noble Beast, kicked off a year that saw him on television, on stage, and on You Tube, as links to clips of a Parisian living-room concert featuring Bird circulated among fans. What they saw was a completely changed man – one who was in full-tilt glow and mastery of his art.

Used to be, Bird stood on stage and played music – keeping his energy to himself, tightly wrapped like a shroud around him. Nowadays, Bird puts it out. Smiling as he's playing, dancing in his socks, drawing out the harmonies of his still-melancholic songs, shaking his arms in the air. He's having a good time up there.

At no performance was this more evident than his Friday evening Lollapalooza set. It rained that afternoon but began to stop as he took the stage – a hometown stage before a hometown crowd. It was chilly, but Chicago was used to that. Whatever the particular alchemy, the result on stage was a man who had shrugged off all nervousness, all hyper-self-awareness; here was man completely aware, and in control of, his powers. Here, finally, was Andrew Bird.

And what material to do it with. Noble Beast is the perfect, grown-up, tuned-up, follow-up to Armchair Apocrapha, the ambitious 2007 album that made him a star in the eyes of critics and music fans alike. If Armchair Apocrapha asked "Who am I?" Noble Beast asks "Who are we?" In a time when we're all asking the same questions – where did we come from, where are we going – Bird is articulating them with such exactitude it leaves one breathless.

And he does it with more than his voice, more than his bow, his violin, his guitar, his pursed, whistling lips, for Bird is a master of sound. To achieve the sounds of Noble Beast Bird describes using numerous unconventional techniques to get the exact sounds that he hears in his head. This is most evident in "Not a Robot, But a Ghost," which begins with the sounds of tinkering glass and pouring liquid before moving into a more layered, verve-heavy sound. On stage, the song is aided with a tiny radio, providing what sounds like thematically-appropriate Morse Code feedback. The final song of the 14-track album, "On Ho!" (the opposite pole of the album's intro "Oh No") comes with more than a bit of static as (we imagine) the animal limps away.

But most of the sounds on the self-produced album come about the old-fashioned way. There's whistling, clapping, vocal harmonies, and the pluck, pluck, pluck of the violin. It's that back-to-basics, wholly analogue, approach to making music that makes Bird a master of these or any sounds. If 2009 was his moment, so might be 2010, 2011 and 2012. Because this was just the moment when Andrew Bird arrived.