"I like how little performance there is in a person chatting at a table or just in a bird song and how it can also contain such depth, honest, and real soul, " he says.

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Greg Budney, audio curator at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library, a renowned collection of recorded bird song, says he has had requests to use the collection for medical purposes but hasn't heard of bird song being used to fight crime.

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He said if it hadn't been for the media, the print media and television, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings, a choir without a song.

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Hungry Bird, once billed as Clem Snide's swan song, is a sprawling bit of post-apocalyptic prog-rock, while The Meat of Life polishes its predecessor's weird edges to a smooth and appealing shine.

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Since then, Barzelay has released a solo acoustic record (2006's Bitter Honey), recorded Clem Snide's swan song (the still-unreleased Hungry Bird), and made Lose Big, a smart and compact collection of rock 'n' roll conversation-starters.

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