INTERVIEWSHear Bill Baird's Wonderfully Askew 'Spring Break of the Soul'

The psych-pop master craftsman returns with a double LP, due March 5 on Pau Wau

It's not usually this quiet in Bill Bairdsville. For two years, the ridiculously prolific former frontman for Sound Team and Sunset has been relatively silent, juggling graduate studies at Mills College in Oakland, California with work on Spring Break of the Soul, a seismic double LP that ends what (felt like) the longest break in his near constant stream of psychedelic output. Like its haunting title track, it's a shapeshifting, fully immersive avant-pop offering that employs far-flung instrumentation and reference points in a way only he can.