On The Verge

Railbird

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Traditional Experimentalists
www.myspace.com/railbirdmusic

The sold-out Bowery Ballroom show that Railbird played early this year with hometown friends Phantogram is only one piece of evidence that things are happening fast for the Upstate New York quintet. Ever since Railbird’s debut in 2008, which featured Trey Anastasio Band bassist Tony Markellis, the band has churned out genre-splicing EPs faster than fans can count the band’s influences. Built around the Billie Holiday-meets-Micachu vocals of Sarah Pedinotti, Railbird has evolved rapidly from traditional Americana to a sound that draws musically from Radiohead, Captain Beefheart, Ghanan highlife and dub reggae, and lyrically from the novels of William Gibson and Haruki Murakami. “I’d get really bored if I had to do something the same way every time all of the time,” Pedinotti says. With each EP (packaged in hand-painted lunch bags), the bass lines have gotten heavier, the dual guitars have become more menacing, the drumming is more fractured and Pedinotti is more enchanting—occasionally complementing her sci-fi themes with hovering synthesizer and toy piano. That, and she can play a blues harmonica. Talking about the band as if it’s a car that the band members keep souping up, she says, “We’ll always keep taking it apart, and sometimes we’ll put up the fuzzy dice.”