"Everything's a rip off." Kicking Bird states that clearly but without irony or apology on their debut album Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. The twist however is that while stolen chords or melodies are an inevitability in all music, it's impossible to not filter the work of those who came first through our own cracked and unique lenses. This is where the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack shines.
Kicking Bird lives inside the connective tissue that started with the first instruments, voices and drums. Subtly familiar but still completely unique, each song on Original Motion Picture Soundtrack attempts to find a space inside the strings and vibrations to reach that wholly shared experience inside all of us, the need to dance. Their live performances slam back and forth between explosive and intimate, highlighted by the polarity shifts of "Just To Be Here With You" and "All The Smallest Places Turn Into A Dream".
The interplay between three distinct vocalists helps define the sound of Kicking Bird while guitars, keys and drums blast through 1-4-5 chord changes that channel the carefree recklessness of early New York punk and 60s Midwest girl groups. Songs like "Lauren" vibrate with urgency and tension, angular guitar riffs calling back to the early 2000s and bands born out of wild eyed bathroom meetings and poorly lit studio apartments.
Five people brought shared experiences into a shed beside a river in southeast North Carolina. What came from that time together is humble, simple, and undeniably unified. Fictions and truths mixed together into a final story, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
