Fish in a Birdcage
My partner and I were driving through the Downingtown area on a chilly Pennsylvania day about two weeks ago. It was cloudy and the roads were crooked and thinning, but we’d both driven them enough times to tune out the way the car dipped towards the shoulders overlooking ragged drops and shallow creeks. As we drove back from Downingtown to West Chester, we listened to an album by an artist that my partner had recently discovered on a Reddit livestream.
He calls himself “Fish in a Birdcage.”
It’s a pretty awesome name for a band — or whatever it’s considered to be, as most of the tracks are comprised of one musician: Dusty Townsend. Townsend is a talented cellist and singer, with many (if not all) of his tracks featuring cello to some degree. The way he utilizes the instrument is as varied as the music on his albums, with a neat contemporary touch and clear roots in classical and fiddle music.
Fish in a Birdcage is based out of Victoria British Columbia, but also has roots in Ireland and Spain. According to the official website, Fish in a Birdcage’s music is a phenomenal mix of styles ranging from “modern Renaissance [and] Electronica to folk strings.” After listening to a wide sampling of his music, I agree that Dusty Townsend and the music spanning his current three albums have an exceptional range. Some of his tracks feature a guest singer, other times he’s accompanied by other musicians — although they might just be Townsend himself accompanying either through acoustic recordings, or with prerecorded MIDI files — I’d have to ask.
After being pulled into my partner’s room those couple of weeks ago to watch a charming mini-concert live on his desktop, I couldn’t help but be won over by the musician on the screen. A laid back dude in loose pants and cool earrings, jamming out on an electric cello — it was clear he was comfortable in front of an audience, and more so that he definitely had some classical training. We couldn’t get enough of it. Dusty Townsend, I know you’ll never read this, but I know you read my partner’s comment aloud over the livestream and you should know, I’m the “composer girlfriend” my metalhead boyfriend was talking about. And an enthusiastic new fan.
So there we were, in a car in semi-rural but semi-suburban Pennsylvania with brown hills, scattered trees and old houses on one side, more trees and a sloped drop on the other. The bluetooth was playing a song from the Fish in a Birdcage EP, titled “Rule #1 — Magic.” It’s a springy cello in b minor, minimal but rhythmic and already easy to listen to, and Townsend’s voice is solid but soft when he sings the opening lyrics: There is magic in this room… I don’t know if you can see it. There is magic in this room… I don’t know if you can feel it.
Underneath the rhythmic solo cello, strings flutter in the background for a moment, and I swear the timing was perfect as I looked out the car window and spotted an old, darkly painted house hidden up on a hill behind a cluster of bare trees. It was a weirdly perfect embodiment of contemporary gothic Americana, the way it sent chills up the back of my neck but still carried an aesthetic that was hard to resist. “Rule #1 — Magic” lives up to the name.
The mood died as soon as we passed a dead deer on the side of the road.
Revisiting the song after a couple weeks, it feels nearly the same, with a buzzing energy like I felt the first time around. It’s more subdued compared to some of the other tracks but with its own sort of ‘magic.’ Minus the deer.
So, given all of that, here are my thoughts, summarized:
Fish in a Birdcage is one of those new music artists who’s just different enough to be interesting, but still manages to come across as easily digestible for a broader audience. And that’s something that, as a composer, I find extremely difficult to do: write new music that’s easily accessible outside of academia and the “contemporary new music” scene.
Fish in a Birdcage has a great blend of indie, folk, pop, electronic, and alternative (with a little bit of blues-y vibes in tracks like “Rule #15 — Aces” from the album Waterfall.) There are songs that I could listen to every day on repeat, e.g. “Rule #11 — My Dream, My Addiction.” But there are also songs that I can only listen to when I have the emotional space to handle them, namely “Rule #2 — Moonlight.”
In 2021, I wouldn’t have thought I would be finding new music through a pandemic-friendly concert on a Reddit livestream, but here we are. And I’m not mad about it.
