Bill Baird

View on the AKP Recordings website.

Bill Baird is a musician, songwriter, and creative technologist originally hailing from Texas and currently based in Oakland, CA. Over the years, Bill’s remarkably prolific work ethic has generated a lengthy back catalog of music releases touching on folk, ambient, thrashed garage, and everything in between. Across all of these releases Bill has maintained a singular artistic voice and ear for potent melodic and lyrical motifs regardless of style or genre. In addition to his record-making history, Bill has also had involvement in creating immersive sound/video installations which have appeared in various museums, cultural centers, and festivals throughout the world.

Bill Baird has entered new territory entirely with Owl, the latest chapter in the Arthur King collective and Dangerbird Records’ “Arthur King Presents” album series. Owl unfolds as a series of driving rhythmic and tonal patterns, shifting and overlapping subtly across the passage of each song to form the impression of constant forward momentum. Much of Owl is heavily inspired by the crucial German producer Conny Plank and his work with artists such as Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Cluster. Bill takes the framework of classic Krautrock and its signature “Motorik” beat and imbues it with his own unique songcraft and narrative structure, conceptually inspired by his son’s intent fascination with owls. In addition to the familiar presence of vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, Bill utilizes a multitude of analog synthesizers recorded at Oakland’s Vintage Synthesizer Museum to construct a colorful, otherworldly sonic panorama.

Bill Baird’s Owl fuses all of these musical and conceptual elements into one compelling whole that takes the listener on a memorable excursion through his own rare form of psychedelia. Arthur King Presents Bill Baird: Owl is out now on Dangerbird Records.