video premiere: A. G. Cook + Alaska Reid – “Seeds”

In case you missed the announcement last week, For The Birds: The Birdsong Project is a sprawling and star-studded new compilation — "an expansive collection of 242 recordings inspired by birdsong" — benefitting the National Audubon Society, and featuring contributions from the likes of Beach House, Nick Cave, Beck, Karen O, Kurt Vile, Animal Collective, Le Ren, Julianna Barwick, Ad-Rock, Buzzy Lee, Tilda Swinton + countless other luminaries, and produced by the great Randall Poster. The Audubon Society calls the Birdsong Project, "a movement inspiring bird conservation through art", and that's a movement we can all fully endorse. One of the highlights from the compilation for me is the beautiful and moving collaborative gem from one of my favorite songwriters/storytellers, Alaska Reid, and A. G. Cook, a man who needs no introduction around here. On the stunning "Seeds", Reid spins a vivid and poignant bird-inspired metaphor over Cook's soaring production with spectacular results, and we're honored to premiere the video for the track here today. Alaska Reid tells us about the song:

A year ago or so I was with some friends driving through these tiny high desert towns in Nevada. We stopped off for a beer and a quick pee at this casino truck stop in the middle of nowhere. I saw this woman playing slots. She was cocooned in this big plastic chair, her wrinkles illuminated in the purple lights. The place was empty except for her. I wondered where she was from. What forces had brought her to this empty casino in the middle of the afternoon. One of the things about being from a small town in the western U.S. is that you understand people's paths are so crazy and different. When Randall asked A. G. and I to do a song for this project, A. G. was thinking about Dolly Parton's melodic world (on top of all the other inventive sound-world stuff he thinks about) and I started thinking about people's movements and paths like seed dispersal, hitching rides in bird feathers, in bear fur. Are you lost, are you happy, are you hiding, are you dreaming?

Watch below, and help save the birds by pre-ordering the 20 LP box set, which comes complete with Warby Parker "birdoculars", here.

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