Bird & Batteries‘ Mike Sempert, an East Coast transplant, has lived in the Bay Area for six years. Like a good number of East Coast folks, Sempert never wanted to move to New York City, and wound up in San Francisco. The local scene’s open, friendly, and encouraging environment kept him here. “What I make will have an audience, at least amongst my friends,” says the mastermind behind Birds & Batteries.

Not only does Birds & Batteries’ sound have an audience, it’s one that is constantly growing thanks to their reputation for infectious live shows and a penchant for multi-genre-spanning tunes. Sempert is a thoughtful songwriter, unafraid to meld electronic and experimental with the barest dash of honky tonk. It’s good stuff, to say the very least.

On the heels of last fall’s Up to No Good EP, which received much buzz in the blogosphere — URB called it “twenty minutes of synth pop bliss” — Birds & Batteries release Panorama, their third studio album, today. Written simultaneously with 2009′s Up to No Good, Panorama is set apart from its predecessor by its more traditional instrumentation, straying further away from Up to No Good‘s electronic sound. “It was the first time I’d focused on a set of sounds.”

Birds & Batteries “Panorama” from Birds & Batteries on Vimeo.

“[Panorama] was influenced most by David Byrne and John Lennon who are very different, and whose music has consistently moved me throughout my life,” says Sempert. “David Byrne manages to comment on society and civilization by keeping his personal self out of the song, almost like an anthropologist. Whereas John Lennon’s solo records are so intensely personal, it’s like staring into his eyeball and forgetting what you’re looking at. Both make you think, at some moment ‘Oh! I know what life’s all about, but if asked, it would be almost impossible to put into words.”

Recorded in part at Hyde Street Studio C as well as Tiny Telephone, Panorama “explores themes of good and evil, love and hate, positive social change vs. the politics of despair. You know, big stuff,” Sempert explains. Titled after the first track of the album, Panorama was dubbed such by Sempert because it represents “some kind of complete truth, or broad understanding. This is something I think we all crave even if it’s only possible in brief glimpses.”

Panorama is sure to please Birds & Batteries fans, new and old. Sempert doesn’t compromise deeper political or personal messages for good hooks and upbeat tempos; he deftly combines the two to make listening to difficult things more palatable. In one of his favorite tracks “The Machine & The Vampire,” which the album was tentatively named for some time, Sempert sings about PTSD and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the slide guitar-laden “Strange Kind of Mirror” is a nod to friendships and what they show you about yourself, good or bad.

Panorama drops Tuesday (Oct. 12). Birds & Batteries will play a CD release party Friday (Oct. 15) at Bottom of the Hill with Geographer.

Check out the delicious Bowie-esque “A Million People,” an exclusive track from Birds & Batteries’ new album, below.

Share and Enjoy

•