I have to admit that up until now I have been entirely ignorant of Ben Vida’s work in the world of music. I’m familiar enough with Kranky and Greg Davis’ loveable Autumn Records, but I’ve always listened to samples of Vida’s work and kind of thought, “eh, I could get into this, but I’m looking for something else right now.” Well this month what I was looking for was not entirely certain, but what I found was this album by an apparently new incarnation of Vida’s Bird Show moniker, Bird Show Band. This eponymous album collects seven tracks of quintets, a quartet, and a couple other miscellaneous performances. In all it seems that the album presents Ben Vida’s music personality distilled and channeled through the Moog Voyager and fronting this band of various other musicians.

Thanks to a grounding with very acoustic-sounding drums and bass, Bird Show Band sounds mostly like a jazz record. Vida’s leads the melodic development of each track and the rhythmic tracks are paced by the album’s two drummers. Aside from the unchanging tempos of each track, the band seems to be floating rather freely, which as any musician knows, is not an easy thing to do with grace. But the grace and chemistry present here are undeniable. This quintet is definitely playing on the same wavelength on these tracks and the end result is a repeatable and thoroughly enjoyable 35 minutes of experimental music.

I’m preparing myself to start digging backward into Vida’s Bird Show catalog, though I must say that I hope I don’t find the absence of the rest of the BSB quintet too disappointing. Superb listen, this album.