“I wasn’t sure how I wanted to write about love and being happy without being totally annoying,” laughs Siri Undlin, AKA Humbird, regarding her recent EP, Astrovan: The Love Song Vignettes, whose origins began when Undlin was suffering from an exceptionally bad case of writer’s block. The 11-track EP, which dropped this January, clocks in at a total of 14 minutes and 12 seconds (The EP’s most epic number, “Easy,” is two minutes and 27 seconds.) During a recent phone chat, Siri tells me that the idea for this kind of release was actually inspired by a former resident of the 215, Tierra Whack: “She put out this album in 2018 called Whack World and it’s 15 songs that are each a minute or less, and it’s this masterpiece. It’s so cool!” The Minneapolis-based Americana singer/songwriter says that this method of creating, disregarding conventions or standards relating to length or song structure, enabled her to move past her composition struggles. She also tells me that she thinks this form of writing is worth considering in general: “I feel like in other genres it happens a lot, like poetry… We need to catch up to poetry [laughs].”
I ask Undlin if fans can expect to hear any of these particular tunes when Humbird headlines MilkBoy on June 11th, and she enthusiastically tells me, “Oh, totally! We’ll play a handful! It takes like five minutes to play five of them [laughs].” The show will be Humbird’s first to actually be in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection in a while – after two shows in Ardmore last year, supporting Brent Cobb in June and then opening things up for our old buddy Lady Lamb in November – and she tells me she’s pretty amped about it: “We’re excited to be back in the city! Philly is so freakin’ cool!” Humbird’s time on the road throughout the past year has been in support of her third full-length, Right On. The album has received critical praise from the likes of No Depression and Atwood Magazine, but Undlin tells me that it’s getting the chance to perform the music that’s been her favorite thing since the album dropped in April of last year: “Overall, we’ve gotten to be really busy and play a lot of shows of because of this album! We’ve played some festivals that have been amazing, like we just played Merlefest.”
For these June dates, Humbird will be touring as a rock trio, which Siri tells me she thinks makes for a great take on the music (She says you can expect a lot of distortion.): “I love playing with them! They’re totally freaks, and I think they add a lot of energy to the songs.” For four of the jaunt’s stops, including MilkBoy, Humbird will be joined by our buddy (or kinda more of a buddy-of-buddies, although I’ve hung with her and she’s totally cool) Eliza Edens, who we saw twice last year (at City Winery and MilkBoy) playing as a trio with Molly Parden and our good phriend Louisa Stancioff, and who we first encountered the previous year when she double-headlined MilkBoy with our pal Al Olender. And apparently Siri and Eliza go back quite some time: “I’m the biggest Eliza fan! We’ve known each other for over a decade; we went to school together.” She tells me they even work with a lot of the same musicians and collaborators: “We’re not actually related but, musically, I feel like our albums are cousins. We’re in the same cosmos.”
Humbird’s upcoming shows will find Siri and her band in a variety of venue types, but she says that barrooms like MilkBoy tend to make for some of the best nights: “Those are my personal favorite… But I also love doing weirder shows, like pop-up shows in planetariums and libraries!” “I feel like what’s so cool is the variety. It’s so cool to play in nightclubs and then it’s so cool to drive out into the woods for a freaky festival,” Undlin tells me. And Humbird do have a few of those freaky festivals in their near future, including Red Ants Pants Music Festival in Montana (in July), Lake Effect Music Fest in Wisconsin (in September), Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon (in September), and this summer’s edition of Pickathon (a phavorite of PHILTHY phriends like Rich Ruth and Cassandra Jenkins), where Siri says she’s excited to reconnect with some peers: “Chris Acker’s a pal… It’s always really fun to see friends at festivals and get the chance to support them.” And while Undlin doesn’t exactly know what the future holds for Humbird, following those festivals, she does tell me she’s been trying to dream up a few special things.
“We’re always making new music. We have three albums and I’m working on a fourth one, but I kinda wanna do some weird stuff… I don’t even know what that means… When you’re doing this, it’s this cycle where you write music, you record music, you tour music… you write music, you record music, you tour music… you write music, you record music, you tour music… and I kind of want to break that cycle, so I’m actively brainstorming wacky things I could do.”
*Get your tickets here.
