Artist The Wooden Birds

Aubrey Edwards

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The Wooden Birds

Though it never received the recognition enjoyed by fellow slowcore outfits like Low and Red House Painters, The American Analog Set was arguably one of the genre’s finest entities, producing a decade’s worth of slow-moving masterpieces before shutting things down following 2005’s Set Free. Today, AmAnSet leader Andrew Kenny focuses his attention on The Wooden Birds, which takes his old outfit’s gentle pop and gives it a more singer-songwriterly spin. On The Wooden Birds’ 2009 Barsuk debut, Magnolia, the occasional twang of an acoustic guitar provides a glimpse of Kenny’s Texas roots, and new Two Matchsticks—which textures his hushed, chugging songs with subtle guitar flourishes and comely harmonies from Matt Pond and Western Keys’ Leslie Sisson—proves it’s more than an indie darling’s navel-gazing second act.

Updated 07/06/2011