Fox and the Bird released Floating Feather in July, but that didn't stop the Dallas band from making its Saturday night gig at Dan's Silverleaf a Denton CD release party.
The band put out a series of live recordings in 2009, all recorded at an East Dallas house show venue called Annex House. Last year, the group put out a single, "Rome."
Then came 2011.
"We wanted to sound like a group that got together to play music - you can hear a lot of imperfections, you can hear the floor creak, you can hear a train going by in the background," said band member Daniel T. Hall, who coordinated the production of Floating Feather.
"We wanted the music to be played correctly," accordion player Dan Bowman said. "We just wanted whatever happened in the room to be part of the record."
Fox and the Bird started when a group of songwriters saw casual gatherings turn into picking and jam sessions. Bowman described the band as a small folk choir, where every musician plays enough instruments to fill the trunk of a compact car.
Floating Feather is a full-length, mostly acoustic album with 11 fleshed-out tracks. In terms of melody, things bounce along merrily, a la They Might Be Giants. Harmonies are church-choir pretty. Lyrics are reminiscent of the macabre and imaginative, of folk music by Welsh immigrants to Appalachia. "Hey Sister" is the most overtly country song, with a chorus of "aroos" filling in for the song's coyotes.
Hall said the record reflects both the spontaneity and the two-year, practiced ease of the band's sound.
"I think there's a little bit of both," he said. "When we sat down to play the album, there were some songs we'd been playing for two years. But our method of recording was 'Let's see what comes up.' There were moments of spontaneity. If you play with a group of people long enough, you get an idea of who will do what, and you can take off and improvise here and there."
While Denton folk luminaries Doug Burr and Sarah Jaffe write music that seems fraught with longing and despair, Fox and the Bird have an album of songs that are loaded lyrically with multiple meanings and some sadness ("Old Mother"), although the music itself is happy. Optimistic, even.
The Denton connection with the group is solid. Petra Kelly of Denton's Spooky Folk plays violin for the band, and the musicians move in the same circles as local Americana luminaries. Bowman said Denton's tireless Ryan Thomas Becker is counted among the band's influences.
Sounds like: Stephen Schwartz (Wicked) and Neil Young wrote a musical about a 21st-century commune set in the Appalachians; or Spooky Folk spent a day entertaining hope. A narrative score tells a story all while generating standalone songs.
Details: Fox and the Bird's show with Dust Congress and Spooky Folk starts at 9 p.m. Saturday at Dan's Silverleaf, 103 Industrial St. Cover is $6. Show is for ages 18 and older.
By Sunday, Floating Feather will be available at Mad World Records and Recycled Books Records CDs on the Square.
On the Web: www.foxandthebird.com
-Lucinda Breeding THEY'RE WITH THE BAND
Fox and the Bird is:
• Dan Bowman - accordion, vocals
• Daniel T. Hall - drums, vocals
• Ray Weyandt - guitar, vocals
• Travis Lawrence - guitar and banjo, vocals
• Wheeler Sparks - guitar, vocals
• Petra Kelly - violin, vocals
• Kelsey Bowman - mandolin, vocals
• Mimo Morreale - upright bass, vocals
• Jacob Metcalf - ukulele, vocals
