Biography
Hailing from Texas, Bill Baird operates as a highly productive and versatile musician who also functions in a do-it-yourself capacity as an artist, inventor, and technologist. His efforts encompass multimedia installations, music videos, scores for independent films, plus assorted experimental recordings and performances such as “Compumonium,” which he created with what he refers to as his laptop ensemble. Additional output appears under his own name, through the Sunset moniker, and as a participant in the indie rock outfit Sound Team.
Sound Team came together in 2000 when Baird joined forces with Matt Oliver; the roster grew and shifted across subsequent years. Following an expanding audience built on self-released CD-Rs and cassettes, the group delivered the analog-recorded Marathon LP, which Secretly Canadian’s St. Ives imprint then adopted. Next came the 2005 Work EP compiling earlier tracks. Capitol signed the band that year, after which they supported acts such as Arcade Fire and the Walkmen on tour. Their first Capitol album, Movie Monster, surfaced in June 2006. Label restructuring contributed to their dismissal a year later, prompting the self-released vinyl EP Empty Rooms/Bedroom Walls/Up from Ashes. Sound Team soon chose to dissolve, staging their final concert at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival.
Baird kept issuing material sporadically under his own name while establishing Sunset as what amounted to a solo endeavor. Merging infectious, sunlit indie pop with experimental instrumentals, electronics, and ambient sketches, Sunset issued five albums—Pink Clouds, Bright Blue Dream, The Glowing City, Gold Dissolves to Gray, and Loveshines But the Moon Is Shining Too—within two years. In 2010 he appeared in the documentary Echotone focused on the Austin scene, and Autobus, which had handled Sunset releases, also put out his previously scarce 2006 solo album Silence!.
Abandoning the Sunset identity, he pursued further musical activities that included live collaborations, self-released tracks, and the 2013 album Spring Break of the Soul on Austin’s Pau Wau Records. That year he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to undertake an MFA in experimental music at Mills College. Later projects featured 2014’s Magnetetractys/Hot Hands, his term for an electro-acoustic harp desk built with magnets and synthesizers, along with the multimedia installation The Living Room at Austin’s Museum of Human Achievement. In 2015 he unveiled Vexationsbot, software that cycles through all 840 repetitions of Erik Satie’s posthumously issued Vexations, and introduced the experimental public-access television opera Mundus Novus.
Early 2016 brought Earth Into Aether, a nineteen-track set of “musical postcards” drawn from cross-country travels. Surveying selections from Baird’s pop and rock solo work, the collection wove together garage and psychedelic pop, electronica, and country influences. He followed with Summer Is Gone in late 2016. Although issued in physical, digital, and streaming editions, its ten songs—each accompanied by dozens of his own remixes—were also hosted on a custom site that generated a distinct version for every visitor. Two further LPs appeared the same day in March 2017 via Europe’s Talk Show Records: Easy Machines, positioned as a reflective psych-folk “morning” record, and Baby Blue Abyss, its more shimmering, uptempo counterpart. A joint U.S. release arrived on Red Essential that July. Before year’s end he delivered Straight Time through Talk Show, then supplied another album for the label in March 2018. Recorded in four days with a band and unrelated to Summer Is Gone, Gone appeared next. Two months later came Cape Disappointment, followed in June by the Joel Shearer-produced Nightly Never Ending. Seeking to clear accumulated recordings, August 2018 saw the covers collection Classic Country, which also reimagined several classical pieces. Credited to Arthur King Presents: Owl and featuring Brian Wright on drums with Baird handling all other instruments, his fifth album of the year arrived that October accompanied by a full-length video.
Sound Team came together in 2000 when Baird joined forces with Matt Oliver; the roster grew and shifted across subsequent years. Following an expanding audience built on self-released CD-Rs and cassettes, the group delivered the analog-recorded Marathon LP, which Secretly Canadian’s St. Ives imprint then adopted. Next came the 2005 Work EP compiling earlier tracks. Capitol signed the band that year, after which they supported acts such as Arcade Fire and the Walkmen on tour. Their first Capitol album, Movie Monster, surfaced in June 2006. Label restructuring contributed to their dismissal a year later, prompting the self-released vinyl EP Empty Rooms/Bedroom Walls/Up from Ashes. Sound Team soon chose to dissolve, staging their final concert at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival.
Baird kept issuing material sporadically under his own name while establishing Sunset as what amounted to a solo endeavor. Merging infectious, sunlit indie pop with experimental instrumentals, electronics, and ambient sketches, Sunset issued five albums—Pink Clouds, Bright Blue Dream, The Glowing City, Gold Dissolves to Gray, and Loveshines But the Moon Is Shining Too—within two years. In 2010 he appeared in the documentary Echotone focused on the Austin scene, and Autobus, which had handled Sunset releases, also put out his previously scarce 2006 solo album Silence!.
Abandoning the Sunset identity, he pursued further musical activities that included live collaborations, self-released tracks, and the 2013 album Spring Break of the Soul on Austin’s Pau Wau Records. That year he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to undertake an MFA in experimental music at Mills College. Later projects featured 2014’s Magnetetractys/Hot Hands, his term for an electro-acoustic harp desk built with magnets and synthesizers, along with the multimedia installation The Living Room at Austin’s Museum of Human Achievement. In 2015 he unveiled Vexationsbot, software that cycles through all 840 repetitions of Erik Satie’s posthumously issued Vexations, and introduced the experimental public-access television opera Mundus Novus.
Early 2016 brought Earth Into Aether, a nineteen-track set of “musical postcards” drawn from cross-country travels. Surveying selections from Baird’s pop and rock solo work, the collection wove together garage and psychedelic pop, electronica, and country influences. He followed with Summer Is Gone in late 2016. Although issued in physical, digital, and streaming editions, its ten songs—each accompanied by dozens of his own remixes—were also hosted on a custom site that generated a distinct version for every visitor. Two further LPs appeared the same day in March 2017 via Europe’s Talk Show Records: Easy Machines, positioned as a reflective psych-folk “morning” record, and Baby Blue Abyss, its more shimmering, uptempo counterpart. A joint U.S. release arrived on Red Essential that July. Before year’s end he delivered Straight Time through Talk Show, then supplied another album for the label in March 2018. Recorded in four days with a band and unrelated to Summer Is Gone, Gone appeared next. Two months later came Cape Disappointment, followed in June by the Joel Shearer-produced Nightly Never Ending. Seeking to clear accumulated recordings, August 2018 saw the covers collection Classic Country, which also reimagined several classical pieces. Credited to Arthur King Presents: Owl and featuring Brian Wright on drums with Baird handling all other instruments, his fifth album of the year arrived that October accompanied by a full-length video.
Albums
Arthur King Presents Bill Baird: Owl
2018
Gone
2018
Straight Time
2017
Baby Blue Abyss
2017
Easy Machines
2017
Summer is Gone
2016
Earth into Aether
2016
Spring Break of the Soul
2013
Singles
