School Fair - Bird The Kid Review
School Fair's Bird the Kid blends haunting nostalgia with hopeful new horizons.
There’s not a lot I know about School Fair. An instant feeling of nostalgia just at the thought of their name, the New Zealand group remain in mystery to me and anyone who tries to come into more information about them. Nevertheless, the digital crate digging that brought me to them had been one of my favourite discoveries of recent years. The Ōtepoti band consisting of Findlay Buchanan, Semisi Maiai, Hamish Morgan, and De Stevens released their first album ‘Gorse on a hill’ during the pandemic, using a four track to record their minimal yet loud and large sound. Four years later, ‘bird the kid’, a cinematic and emphatically emotional second album from School fair cements the talented act as true indie darlings of another genre fusion I cannot seem to name.
An introduction to an ominous destination depicted throughout the album is presented to us in the opener ‘Sun goes down forever’, distinctive for the sombre delivery of vocals from Stevens with Rose Pickernell returning for guest vocals in this drowsy folk song. ‘Gorse the golden’ is an assembly of reflective lyrics mimicking diary entry observation of an alternative world which brings an eeriness to the already haunting, country laden guitar line. The keys are a significant embellishment to the entirety of this album as well as this track, honing in on an inexplicable emotional string that binds all the tracks together. Embroiled in two dreamy sequences with back to back seven minute songs that aren’t necessarily building towards a pinnacle. The appearance of light percussion that drifts from the set melody during ‘a torn moon mended’ gives a sudden burst of charm to this track as it slowly builds, never peaking or surmounting into its presumed peak but ending where it started off from.
‘You only love me cause you want something’’s use of samples gives a scratchy, collaged edge to the track that feels like the instrumentation is chasing each other rather than playing in sequence. The drum performance is percussive more than rhythmic, elevating this cacophonic short whirlwind of a track. Shoe gaze guitars open up ‘vexed’ in amidst the frenzied keys that take the lead, Buchanan’s voice brings an element of hopefulness. The bass section ushers in an unexpected but fitting and punchy grunge element to the track.
Discovering the band was a musical gem within a year of constant new musical gems. I’d find myself looking back at their Bandcamp for something new every now and again. It really did seem like one of those discoveries of an act to only find one publicly released work that you will inevitably rinse because of this fact. And then, Bird the kid. An elevation of their minimal sound, pushing out of the post punk and finding themselves portraying a hopefulness in an album that seems to base itself in a place symbolic of hopelessness. Morose and melancholic, coming to find a new addition to this band’s catalogue after some mere months of discovering their debut is a situation of perfect timing. The mysterious New Zeleanders have truly quenched my thirst.