Ready your listening ears: more than 200 musicians — including Beck, Animal Collective, Jeff Tweedy, Karen O, Beach House, and Nick Cave and Warren Ellis — are contributing to an expansive compilation of original music and bird-related poetry inspired by birdsong.
For the Birds: The Birdsong Project will be released in five monthly stages, sharing over 242 recordings through until September. The first full 47-track volume lands today, while a massive 20-LP vinyl box set complete with a 60-page book is due to be released alongside the final product.
The project also includes spoken-word pieces from the likes of Sean Penn, Tilda Swinton, Natasha Lyonne, Florence Welch and Robert Pattinson, with further musical contributions by Terry Riley, Mary Lattimore, Tyondai Braxton, Damon Albarn, Mark Ronson and Elvis Costello.
In a statement about the project, Costello said: "This should be so very obvious; without birds we would be knee-deep in worms, swarmed by bugs, the trees bereft of song. The least we can do is raise our voices in praise or lament."
Listen to For the Birds: The Birdsong Project, Vol I below.
For the Birds: The Birdsong Project will be released in five monthly stages, sharing over 242 recordings through until September. The first full 47-track volume lands today, while a massive 20-LP vinyl box set complete with a 60-page book is due to be released alongside the final product.
The project also includes spoken-word pieces from the likes of Sean Penn, Tilda Swinton, Natasha Lyonne, Florence Welch and Robert Pattinson, with further musical contributions by Terry Riley, Mary Lattimore, Tyondai Braxton, Damon Albarn, Mark Ronson and Elvis Costello.
In a statement about the project, Costello said: "This should be so very obvious; without birds we would be knee-deep in worms, swarmed by bugs, the trees bereft of song. The least we can do is raise our voices in praise or lament."
Listen to For the Birds: The Birdsong Project, Vol I below.