Artist – Dorothy Bird
Album – Belonging
Released on vinyl – 24th June 2022
Reviewer – Alan O’Hare, Liverpool Acoustic
Rating – 8/10
There’s nothing like a warm, analogue sound to send a male, middle-aged, acoustic guitar-loving reviewer into raptures. The rub? The warm, analogue sound produced here is the result of an artist at the cutting edge of technology winning the battle between progression and perfection.
Dorothy Bird, born in Europe, living in Britain, is a songwriter and arranger to be reckoned with. With ringing endorsements from BBC Introducing, Tom Robinson’s Fresh On The Net and a plethora of taste-making magazines both in England and her native Germany, this is the work of an artists whose star is rising.
Comparisons have been drawn with Björk, Kate Bush and Thom Yorke, but the sound of Dorothy Bird is startlingly original. ‘Belonging’, then, is a record that dives into personal development and wills a world to appear. Combining acoustic strings and guitars with synths and drum machines, the record represents two different worlds that are connected to each other. “All instruments belong together,” smiles the artist, currently dividing her time between Liverpool and Berlin. “I looked for different elements and sounds for the songs on the album that live in a different part of a spectrum, a bit like day and night, stillness and liveliness, heaven and earth. I wanted to combine these sounds and colours to support the lyrics of the songs.”
A beguiling listen that encourages conversation and exchange in polarising times, Dorothy Bird’s debut album proper connects microcosm and macrocosm with a deft touch. Talking just like she sings – beautifully unaware of the life the breathlessness of her delicate but determined voice can breathe into this fouled and confused world – Dorothy Bird has arrived. And she belongs.
Alan O’Hare
© 2022 Alan O’Hare, Liverpool Acoustic
Belonging was released on vinyl (includes download code) on Friday 24th June on Klee Music.