Listen to Simon Bird’s debut album Sport and watch a 10-minute music video
Surprise! Simon Bird released his first album Sport via Bandcamp this week without much warning. I’ve had two listens to it which is really not enough to say anything concrete about it either way but so far other than it’s an intense hour of drone and ambient-informed electronic music, heightened and erudite; elongated and elusive.
He says of the title:
Sport has always seemed kind of alien to me.
I’ve never enjoyed watching or playing any kind of sport and I have struggled for my entire life to gain an understanding as to what it is about sport that so many people find captivating and entertaining.
Therefore it seemed fittingly ironic for me to name this album, which I spent almost an entire year of life working on and poured hundreds of hours of work into, after something that is (at least in my mind) completely irrelevant and void of any substance or meaning.
Fuck Sport.
Bird wanted to release the album before the end of the year hence the quick release but he’s also been working on a trippy fantastical music video for ‘All The Houses On My Street Look Exactly The Same’ with friends. It was directed by Kevin A. Freeney of Clu. The album can be heard here.
Read the extensive Sport Harmless Noise review.
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Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.