Kills Birds derive their name from the first verse on their album: “This flower / kills birds / When she dies / she rots like flesh.” It’s the whole album in a couplet — beauty, peril, mystery, anxiety — conveyed over throbbing, then exploding, post-punk/noise-rock primitivism.
The narrator is Nina Ljeti, a self-professed outsider, a filmmaker and a Bosnia-born Canadian whose parents fled Sarajevo as the city was on the precipice of war. She eventually matriculated to NYU to study drama and then to L.A. to further her film career. A few years ago, she befriended musician Jacob Loeb (of the band Golden Daze), and they intermittently began collaborating on music, at first with no serious intentions.
When the project did get more serious the band added bassist Fielder Thomas and drummer Bosh Rothman came on board — things did not immediately go smoothly. There was an ill-fated recording session, which fostered doubts. Then producer Justin Raisen, founder of KRO Records found them. “Kills Birds,” which comes out September. 20th, was recorded in virtually one eight-hour session.
The album is 26 minutes of exposed nerves. Ljeti’s speak-singing builds to primal caterwauls, then recedes again. The music’s paroxysms open a vein to her inner frustrations, even if they are only opaquely described in the lyrics. It’s visceral and physical music — as led by somebody who didn’t know punk rock until one fateful night after she watched “American Idol” (stay tuned for that story).
The Fat Angel Sings 