Bird By Snow
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Bird By Snow

San Francisco, California, United States | INDIE

San Francisco, California, United States | INDIE
Band Folk Rock

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"Write-up / Track Premiere from Magnet Magazine"

Bird By Snow is San Francisco resident Fletcher Tucker, and he has just issued fourth album Common Wealth via his own Gnome Life label. While his previous efforts were mostly home-recorded affairs, Common Wealth finds Tucker collaborating with Spencer Owen and being produced in a 24-track studio by Tim Green of the Fucking Champs. The result is gorgeous, lush journey through psychedelic pop. We are proud to premiere album closer “Across The Water” today on magnetmagazine.com - Magnet Magazine


"Review for "Common Wealth" (newest LP) in AllMusic"

"The fourth Bird by Snow album is also Fletcher Tucker's first recorded away from his home setting; if the difference is sometimes subtle, there's still an overall rich depth to the sound brought out by the engineering work of Tim Green as well as in the increasingly complex arrangements by Tucker and his now regular percussionist, Spencer Owen. Overall, Common Wealth's strongest quality lies in its inability to be pinned down; Tucker's work is now something that resists easy summary -- one can hear everything from understated folk antecedents to fraught metal extremes to shadowed goth touches throughout its seven songs, but at no point is it simply one of those approaches, or any other one, for that matter. If his soft, low voice and general approach certainly suggests Nick Drake, this is a Drake that would be as familiar with the Boris album with the cover art referencing Bryter Layter as much as his own original work. (Also, somehow it seems hard to imagine Drake ever singing with the kind of understated swagger evident on "There Is a Marriage," not to mention the song's overall classic R&B shuffle, however refracted through echo and other equally understated but present elements.) The delicate flow of "Friends in the City," Owen's pinpoint performance providing a clear, brisk kick, works just as strongly as a song like "Without Reaching," where the rhythm comes courtesy of a guitar figure as well as a quiet but steady vocal part below Tucker's main lyric. Further touches like the looped piano pulse that suddenly starts and then underpins "One White Flag" and the distanced electric guitar on "As We Are Now" flesh out this very enjoyable release." - Ned Raggett - AllMusic


"Write-up / Track Premiere on Tiny Mix Tapes"

Fletcher Tucker, a.k.a. Bird By Snow, has been self-releasing home recordings on his own imprint Gnome Life for the past few years, which in internet years translates to roughly 6.5 years. This means that Bird By Snow is a veteran on the web's hyper-accelerated temporal scale, and his fourth album, Common Wealth — produced by Tim Green (Wolves In The Throne Room, Citay, The Fucking Champs) — proves as much. The album is due in late October, and with beautiful locks like his, why wouldn't you check it out? I mean, seriously, you can't get that kind of hair using cheap shit like Pert Plus. I want his hair on my chest. - Tiny Mix Tapes


"Write-up / Track Premiere on The Fader"

The vocals on this track by Bird by Snow sound round and full, like being surrounded by a blanket and then the blanket turns out to actually be some dude’s voice. Which actually, if you really think about it hard, is kind of nightmarish… so maybe don’t think about it that hard. Mainly, “There is a Marriage” succeeds on atmosphere. This voice paired with tip-toeing guitar line and the soft hiss of empty space is basically what it feels like to hole up in a warm wood cabin for awhile. If you want to get nerdy, there are echoes of the way Phil Elverum sings from his throat—intimate and softly bubbling, but cleaner. Less cracks and more foggy smoothness. Commonwealth is out October 27th.
- The Fader


"IFC (Independent Film Channel) website premieres mystic live videos"

"Grab hold of your chakras we're heading into the spirit world. On October 16th, San Francisco's Bird By Snow hiked three miles up to a secluded wooded grove in Big Sur, taking a few instruments and a toy Japanese camera with them into the fog. They came to a big oak tree and crafted a uniquely percussive sculpture from fallen branches (along with some twine, home-made ceramic chimes and a cymbal), and raised it in the boughs of the oak. This became the rhythmic centerpiece of a transcendent live performance series which we have here for your contemplation."

Visit the URL for videos - Independent Film Channel


"Review for "Common Wealth" (newest LP) in No Ripchord"

9/10
Inasmuch as Justin Vernon’s (Bon Iver) log cabin break-up album, For Emma, Forever Ago, won critical acclaim, hearing Vernon’s heartache-as-influenced-by-natural-setting adorn his guitar strings with lonely snowflakes, his exhalations and professions visibly leaving his mouth and floating in the cold despair… Yeah, I can’t argue that it’s a genuine album and that it’s absorbed in a degree of isolation you can only achieve by being isolated.

Performing as Bird By Snow, Fletcher Tucker and Spenser Owen’s off time psych folk album Common Wealth mirrors a landscape, a peaceable and sun bright spot where the air can bite your cheeks and chap your lips. Minimalist in every sense of the word, Common Wealth is an affecting and delicate album, lacking Vernon’s cathartic needs and instead expressing quiet seclusion with analog sensitivity. The album’s first single, Friends In The City, articulates this seclusion with a simple observation: “Every friend I have in the world lives in a city.” Whether Tucker or Owen seek to reside in nature is unknown, but there’s an essence to their surroundings that they manage to convey in this music, and Common Wealth is strong enough to take you someplace else with every listen.

A chill sets in with Wobbly Legs, its stark rumble and layered notes beginning the album as its lengthiest offering. With Common Wealth, it’s difficult not to attribute most of the album’s success to Owen’s percussive arrangements, the rhythm he defines deepening the instruments’ resolve. Aside from the aforementioned Friends In The City, Owen strikes well enough to make There Is A Marriage almost qualify as a rock song. The album’s closer, Across The Water, is awash not only in Tucker’s comingling instruments, but also rolls of drum passages that run through the song in semi-militaristic fashion.

And while Owen helps to create a unique stride, Tucker’s presence resonates heavily in songs like Onewhiteflag, As We Are Now and Without Reaching, points where his voice and guitar can run dominance. It’s not easy to make folk-flavored music different when singer/songwriters seem to emerge from obscurity as often as they fade back, but Tucker seems to simply know the notes and the words. This is music as natural as sunshine, rolling off his strings and keys like rain off a slick surface. - No Ripchord


"Interview on Swedish Blog"

Despite being on an ongoing tour to support his beautiful new album Songbread/Another Ocean, Bird By Snow (aka Fletcher M. Tucker) still managed to find time to answer some questions for I Am The Crime. So step into the interrogation room to see what he had to say about inspirations, nature, Sweden and – of course – music.

What originally inspired you to make music?
I didn’t start playing music until I was 17 or 18… which is pretty late I think. But I came to the process of making music from a background in visual art, which I have been invested in all my life. Recording music, and constructing a song or album reminded me of sculpture, revealing imagined spaces, sonic spaces and mind spaces, instead of physical space… it seemed like a natural new (to me) way to express certain ideas, and I saw the benefits of making work that existed in time, changed and traveled. Songs are fluid and can grow, I think that is what makes them particularly special, different than other art forms… they are made of breath, so they are living things. I make music because I want to contribute to the collective wisdom of mankind, simple as that.

The combination of your music and photos gives me the impression that nature plays a big part in what you create. Would that be a correct observation?
What isn’t nature, and how could its role in anything be diminished? Aren’t I nature? Isn’t this interview nature? Isn’t music nature? What, if anything seems more “natural” than music? It is true that non-human nature, and most particularly the Wild, are inspiring to me, mostly because I think the Wild is a great teacher, full of surprises within elegant systems of inter-connection. The Wild shows us that we are huge and tiny… insignificant, but part of a continuum… if you can really take that lesson in, I think your potential to be compassionate, fearless and creative grow and grow and never stop.

You seem to have a flurry of guest musicians. Ever considered narrowing it down and forming a “proper” band?
My friend Spencer Owen plays about half the music on all of the Bird By Snow records, and when I am lucky he performs live with me. We are the “band” on the records, basically co-arrangers on my tunes, so I am not in it alone exactly. I have played with a lot of different folks at live shows, and have had guests on the records, and I hope that never changes… because the band changes around me, the sounds do too, and so does the way I relate to the songs… and the songs continue to expand and change, become new again, and keep teaching me. Sometimes I even recruit a backing band from a band I happen to be playing a show with, and we have to figure out the songs together as we play them for the first time, and usually the last time… which means I can’t get attached, I can’t hold onto the new arrangements no matter how nice they sound, everything is a surprise in that moment only. I have done this a few times and it is always satisfying and
wonderful in different ways.

What led to you living here Sweden for a while?
I visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 2005, I was compelled by myths, and birch trees, and the Northern Lights, and by my ancestors. The whole area was romantic to me. I grew up in a small town in Northern California that has no distinguishable seasons, just cool fog all year long, but in the North the seasons change so dramatically, the land is so old, and the people who live there are affected by this old churning place whether they appreciate it or not. I wanted to feel that land, those dark days and long sunlit nights, snow and fjäll. In 2007 I toured in Europe twice, playing music, first a long long tour all over, and then again in just Scandinavia and Spain… I found myself pulled back to Sweden and its people, it is where I have met most of my close friends outside of the U.S. I also started to work with a label in Göteborg (Kning Disk) in 2007, which meant more reasons to perform and “spread the word” about Bird By Snow in Sweden. At the end of my second tour I fell in love with a woman in Stockholm, so I came back and lived with her for a while, then she moved south and I lived with her in Malmö… I studied Swedish briefly and walked the old land, sat in saunas, swam in the Baltic. There is more to see; more to uncover… I will be back soon.

Tell me about the song “My Life is Easy” – what are the intentions behind its lyrics?
My new record, which has that song on it, comes with a little book that contains the lyrics for every song and many other ideas that relate to each song. That song has the most lyrics of all the songs on the album, and I think it also has the longest explanation! But I will try to keep it under control here… the way you phrased this question is actually on-point with my philosophy of songwriting, because I think of songs as “intentions.” My intention by singing “my life is easy” is to sew my self generously into the fabric of the generous world! It isn’t a song about comfort, which I think it could obviously be misread as. It is not about the fact that I have always had enough food to eat, or a warm place to sleep, it would be cruel and ignorant to sing about comfort like that… there is hunger, sorrow, and oppression in the world, obviously there is work to be done. But a proclamation of “ease” is not a denial of that presence, it is a denial of dualism. My life is full of ease if I don’t separate the world or the events of my life into categories of good or bad, challenges or opportunities… it is one happening and, in my opinion, one celebration… My life is easy!

How would you describe the new album?
This new record plays around the idea of undoing separation. Seeing people, the earth, and ourselves as we are, which is as one… that’s an easy thing to say, so easy that it seems cheesy, even meaningless… but it is very difficult to put into practice, it takes practice, and some of my practices involve writing poetry and making music to undo separation. Within that literally all-encompassing idea there are also smaller currents of thought that connect the songs. Side A is mostly concerned with “nourishment,” and side B with “expansion.”

My relationship to these songs is different than on my other two records too, because I wrote almost every one of them on tour, and played them for two years before recording them. So before putting them on tape, I really “knew” them, we had been on long trips together already, and the songs hold very few secrets from me. On my first record (“Antlers and the Sun and All the Things that Grow old and Pass Away”) I actually wrote each song as I recorded it, kind of like multi-track improvisations. On “Sky,” my second LP, I wrote most of the songs like poems without any access to an instrument as I traveled, when I got home from my trip I sat down with an 8-track cassette machine and recorded every song pretty much in the order they appear on the record, finding the melody and instrumentation the day I recorded it. I am still learning the origin of some of those songs, still discovering connections in the words and tunes. The songs on “Songbread/Another Ocean” are more like old friends to me.

Sonically there is a lot of new stuff going on too, new sounds for me… tidal cellos, shimmering percussion, rolling piano, oceanic drones, expanding and contracting tape collages… and many many words, which all inevitably point back to the same simple idea: there is only one generous moment, everything else we just made-up.

What are you currently listening to?
I am pretty deep into the band Wolves in the Throne Room these days, they are a Black Metal band from Olympia Washington. They are my most recent beloved discovery. For the last couple years I have been obsessed with Tuvan music, particularly over-tone singing and the band Chrigilchin. I have also been mesmerized by Daniel Higgs, particularly his lyrical work, he is my current favorite lyricist and mystic. And I continue to adore a specific Robbie Basho album, “Voice of the Eagle,” which in my opinion contains the finest and most emotionally evocative singing ever put to tape. I am inspired by, and love to listen to my friends… Wildbirds and Peacedrums have a new record that is rad! And my buds Spencer Owen and Sean Smith both made records in 2008 that I am always ready to listen to (“Logic” and “Eternal,” respectively). My true favorite music is live music, so I am often at a show, being amazed. - I am the Crime


"Review for "Sky" (2nd LP) in Dusted"

The Bird by Snow story continues, and Fletcher Tucker is learning from previous transgressions: he’s becoming a much more accomplished arranger, leading songs that walk up to the edge of acid folk, but steer towards rock with their various distorted elements, and the solid, melodic backbone most of these tracks have. Borders on Durutti Column-esque new age aether in parts, and towards forest-minded deadheads like Still Life in others. Tucker’s voice was what shot him in the foot on previous releases; dude can’t help it, he sounds a little Muppety, and too much like James Taylor when he projects. Fortunately, he plays the vocal card with more subtlety here, allowing the strength of his compositions and co-instrumentalist Spencer Owen to fill in the blanks. Fleshed out with field recordings and more real, desolate charm than ever before, this is a record of great intrinsic worth, and manages to do something new and consistent within a genre largely held together by image and one-trick skills. They even manage to incorporate dub elements into their sound, sounding perfectly natural and not at all cheesy or forced. Incredible and very worthwhile. Edition of 300 in a silkscreened sleeve, on blue vinyl. - Dusted Magazine


"Review for "Sky" (2nd LP) in Animal PSI"

BBS’ second LP ‘Sky’ conscientiously comes with a CDr version, which means I can put the portable away for a minute while I write. “White Sky” opens the thing off, and by the third note it's clear that Tucker’s been practicing his art. Concocting a nice mix of nylon and electric strings, he uses each instrument’s part with greater attention to composition - giving ‘Sky’ a greater complexity. Most of all, his voice sounds surer and his words bolder, synthesizing a sincerity which pushes his songs closer to those of his aforementioned compatriots. The album is united with a central string/scrape sound like that of piano strings. I imagine this is the dulcimer that appears in the notes of each song; to be bowed or plucked, the instrument lends the songs a simultaneously sinister and mythic inflection, particularly when coupled with the song’s feedback blasts and picked guitars. “Black Elk in the Mountains” has a swaying acoustic plucking and refrain that momentarily recalls folkier rock like Joni Mitchell or Cat Stevens, though with an overt darkness that would never fly in such mainstream recordings; “Plato’s Cave” is more like Nick Drake than not, and is followed by a nice wilderness field-recording/ukulele song called “( )”. “The Sound and the River within the Sound” is one of BBS’ best compositional moments, with the repetition and harmony “there is a sound/and there is no sound” skillfully laced across layers of banjo riff, accordion, stick and bell percussion, and various manipulated adornments. Final tracks “I am not the Moon and neither is the Moon” and “Animals Calling” again parallel much Thanksgiving, though with the severe sentimentality and melodramatic optimism that informs the majority of Tucker’s lyrics thus far. - Animal PSI


"Review for "Sky" (2nd LP) in Terrascope UK"

Sending your latest release onto the Terrascope in vinyl format is guaranteed to get you noticed around here, when that vinyl is sky-blue, the cover embossed gold and black, and containing a hand-drawn booklet, then serious notice is taken in these digital days. Of course, as beautiful and eye-catching as the packaging is, it has to be matched by the music within and in this case it most certainly is, the band (mainly Fletcher Tucker, with help from Spencer Owen) producing a gentle folk-psych sound, with flourishes of found-sound, drone and dub influenced rhythms.

Opening with a mellow drone, “White Sky” soon settles into a soothing groove, the acoustic instruments forming a warm harmonious whole that allows the wonderful vocals to shine through with a drifting resonance. Following on “Black Elk In The Morning” has a scratchier, wyrd-folk element created, perhaps, by the use of dulcimer, ukulele, banjo and nylon guitar, as well as electric guitar and some perfectly realised percussion, all of which make it one of my favourite tracks on the album. A more fragile ambience is created on “Plato’s Cave” the vocals almost swallowed by a background hiss that could be running water, or possibly not, either way the song flows in beautiful fashion, ending in an almost latin flavoured outro.

A recording of a walk in the forest is used as a backdrop for “( )”, a sad ukulele tune providing fitting accompaniment to the sound of birds and the roar of the surf that ends the song. The excellently titled “The Sound And The River Within The Sound” ends side one with a cohesiveness of identity that really adds to the charm of the album, the band managing to be diverse whilst capturing the essence of their sound within the songs.

Having had the pleasure of turning the album over, “Sasquatch Says: The Old World Whispers” continues to weave the magic of side one, the sound nodding in the direction of Joni Mitchell (around the time of “Hejira”), as well as the folk/electronic musings of Tuung, although this is far more song based than their latest album. On “Green I’s” an almost spiritual feel is conjured up with the use of a drifting organ and some introspective lyrics that drag the listener into the mood. After a brief return to “( )”,just the field recording this time, “I Am Not The Moon Neither Is The Moon” is a haunting song with some off-centre melodica playing that is made stranger by the fuzzed guitar that adds some dark atmosphere to the tune. Finally “Animals Calling” brings us home, a nostalgic piano motif creating an ache in the heart, proving once again the emotional quality of this album, brimming with gently persuasive songs that will remain with you long after the needle has lifted.
- Terrascope UK


"Review for "Songbread/Another Ocean" (3rd LP) in Terrascope UK"

Eschewing the usual side A and B, the latest album by Bird by Snow, chooses instead to name each side of the LP, with "Songbread" representing nourishment and "Another Ocean" representing Expansion. Whilst this may seem a trivial point, add it to the wonderful packaging, clear vinyl, lyric booklet and enclosed sheet of poetry and you realise that a huge amount of thought and care has gone into this release, a realisation that in these days of mass consumerism, there is still a place for craftsmanship and human endeavour.

Containing ten songs, the music on this release has been given the same care as the packaging, the beautiful arrangements adding depth and grace to the gentle music and wonderful vocal performance. Throughout the album there is a spiritual longing to be found, the richness of the music suggesting quiet contemplation in remote place, a wilderness than can be found within. These thought are echoed by the lyrics and also the explanation given for each song, these writings adding richness to the listening experience.

After the warm beauty of "Domestic Freedom", the haunting drone of an electric Shruti ushers in "If You Wait", Cello and Bowed Banjo offering atmosphere to the this devotional prayer to the soul. With added drums, "Caveman Baby" adds volume yet retains the intimate feel, tape loops, singing bowls, and Dulcimer all utilised to great effect, the song fading into the sound of crackling fire and wind.

With an album of such quality it is impossible to pick highlights, the flow of the album as vital as the individual songs, however, moving to the "Another Ocean" side, the title song (preceded by the sounds of the ocean) aches with longing, displaying an intensity so lacking in commercial music these days, whilst "My Life is Easy" seems to be a rallying call for acceptance, the sonorous voice pointing out how joyful and rewarding life can be, all we need is to reign in our greed, harness our desires and live in the now. Maybe these are my interpretations only, but I feel this is the undercurrent of the whole album, life is a journey, a brief flash of light, we should experience all we can and be truly happy. (Simon Lewis) - Terrascope UK


"Review for "Songbread/Another Ocean" (3rd LP) in Ear to the Sound"

I know February is the shortest month of the year, but this one really got away on me. Between suffering from strep throat and readying the baby room for the impending addition to the family I just never had a moment to post here. Which is not to say I haven't heard any blog-worthy music over the past month. Far from it. While painting the baby room I listened to a whole host of new albums including Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, the Great Lake Swimmer's Lost Channels and The Boy Least Likely To's The Law Of The Playground. That Grizzly Bear record has been blogged to bits and if you aren't up on the Great Lake Swimmers after Bodies and Minds and Ongiara, well I can't help you. But You Ain't No Picasso can.

I may yet write about The Boy Least Likely To, whose follow-up to the sweetly winning The Best Party Ever merits its own post but the album I want to feature today is one that I became aware of thanks to my pal J-Rod and the blog bolachas grátis who put me on to Bird By Snow. It's an album I've been returning to repeatedly these last few weeks.

By turns hushed and clamorous, Bird By Snow's material is lovingly hand-crafted from field recordings, tape-collage, voice, guitar, cello and more. Fletcher Tucker (the steady hand behind BBS) has entitled the album Songbread/Another Ocean as he views each side of the LP as its own entity, deserving of its own nomenclature and "more mind-space to flourish and expand," though I have trouble drawing a distinction between the two halves - it's a uniformly captivating record.

There are squalls of white noise that drift in and out of the mix, and Tucker's use of silence lends it an instrumental quality. And while the songs don't quite fall under the 'freak folk' umbrella, I can imagine there is some overlap between audiences for Devendra Banhart, MV & EE and Bird By Snow. But where Banhart populates his song with characters, playing up the quirk, and MV & EE suffuse their folk with drone, Bird By Snow is intensely personal and the melodies are never lost amidst the surrounding noise. It's beautiful music, but the beauty is a fragile and awkward one.

Before I go, here's a selection from the the Songbread half of the release entitled "If You Wait."

You can order the album from Gnome Life Records, and be sure to visit Bird By Snow's Myspace page (the band's personal website appears to be down).

Thanks for reading, now start listening... - Ear to the Sound


"Review for "Songbread/Another Ocean" (3rd LP) in Music Emissions"

Bird by Snow takes a trip on the spiritual side of alt-folk. These hopeful, searching tracks by guitarist/vocalist Fletcher Tucker blend wisdom, ignorance, psych, folk and Fahey, and are often as moving as they are poweful. At first you may not think the guitar work on "Songbread/Another Ocean" is that adeventurous, but deeper listening into the simple themes has quite a few rewards/
"Domestic Freedom" has a soaring soft-rock feel, with an edge totally missing from that genre. "If You Wait" features a simple, insistent beat driven by drums and spare electric guitar line that sparse, but insistent guitarpresents itself more foecefully on "Caveman Baby"-lo-fi claustrophobic gem with chopping chord phrases, and on "You are Mom."
For variation, and to extend some developing themes, "Lovers on our Backs" adds a jarring piano, mingling with a hypnotic guitar phrase; the piano weaves in and out of this beautiful track, which also features backing vocals. Finally, "What I am Doing" a seven miute epic with hazy, distant vocals, like recorded from an opposite side of the room as the band is haunting, but becomes more clear, like a resolution by its end. It is a driving, insistent tune evoking some sense of a lesson learned.
"Songbread/Another Ocean," with Tucker's guitar as bullhorn, is full of such confident but humble traces of understanding. - Music Emissions


"Review for "Songbread/Another Ocean" (3rd LP) in Still Single"

Bird by Snow is a grocery list of things, aesthetic and musical, that lesser bands have ruined…dramatic vocals, string arrangements, widescreen pop, the naturalist movement, apocalyptic overtones, and general eccentricity. Think back when Godspeed! You Black Emperor first happened, when their “thing” was a little more interesting tiresome crusty punk concerns packaged in Tindersticks’ chops. Then, jump a year or two to the first time A Silver Mt. Zion filled your shitty apartment with the “Godspeed! With Heart!” feel still used by said band to make better-than-boring albums. Though there is a tangible quality here and there, Bird by Snow is not all that similar on paper to the Constellation crowd, but we’re not peddling “tangible” here, we’re interested in “feel” and charm, two things on the 3rd Bird by Snow album alternately used as tools and outputted to the listener as intangible goodness. To put it another way: If Arcade Fire had lived up to ¼ of their INITIAL hype/promise, before anyone had actually heard the band, instead of becoming an excuse to over-intellectualize The Hooters, it might’ve hinted at the accomplishments found on Songbread/Another Ocean. Occasionally, nothing is more refreshing than hearing a band totally ace the “Everything Irritating … Done Right!” hat trick. - Dusted Magazine/Still Single


"Review for "Common Wealth" (newest LP) in Letters From a Tapehead"

A few weeks ago, I received a copy of Common Wealth, which is the fourth album from psych-folk band, Bird By Snow. Admittedly I wasn't expecting much, the natural elements that grace their album's cover indicative of indistinguishable and typically light and airy folk-based acoustic music that was likely to be overly sentimental and sensitive.

Some of what I assumed to be true (i.e. "light," "airy") was, but Bird By Snow pull together some graceful harmonies and the guitar melodies are beautifully arranged and striking. I'm happily surprised at the level of sophistication Common Wealth boasts and "Friends In The City" ably qualifies as a perfect summation of Bird By Snow's sound. - Letters From a Tapehead


"Review for "Common Wealth" (newest LP) in Zink Magazine"

Bird By Snow takes us back to our roots with their latest release, Common Wealth.

Formed in a little town in Northern California, Bird By Snow’s music fits the lo-fi Pacific Northwest indie scene perfectly. Just seven tracks long, their latest album Common Wealth still manages to make an impact with lyrics about nature, community and friendship give the album a ritualistically spiritual tone. Singer and songwriter Fletcher Tucker is the main creator of the songs, along with collaborator Spencer Owen. The first of Bird By Snow’s albums to be recorded in a studio, it seems that the duo took full advantage of the space to give birth to their own world, an ecosystem of lush folk musical arrangements in a world full of wilderness. “Friends in the City” relates the sort of unnoticed magic of friendship, “Onewhiteflag” is a lovely call to freedom and letting go of the past in order to move on unhindered in life and. Tucker’s vocals are deep and rich, creating a mellow atmosphere that makes the seven tracks meld together into an ode to the unstructured world. Birdbysnow.com — Kerri Jarema - Zink Magazine


"Review for "Common Wealth" (newest LP) in The Bay Bridged"

San Francisco’s Fletcher Tucker, recording as Bird By Snow, returns with his fourth LP, Common Wealth, this month on Gnome Life Records. As you’ll hear in the two songs above, Tucker has crafted something really special, working with percussionist Spencer Owen and recording wizard Tim Green to create rich, moody songs with an astonishing depth. In the foreground, Tucker’s vocals drive things ahead, examining relationships and the natural world, and they’re surrounded by a hypnotic blend of instruments and rhythms that have a rich tapestry feel. - The Bay Bridged


"Write-up / Track Downloads on RCRD LBL"

As you might deduce by the artist’s photo and the artist’s name, Bird By Snow was born in the air between beach fires, big skies, and long-shuttered winter cabins. Let the ‘good flow’ flow with two headily vocaled, woodsy folk tunes harvested from Common Wealth, the new mystical drifter LP available for frost-bitten sleepovers and long, winding walks now. - RCRD LBL


Discography

"Wild Life" (7"EP) 2011 --- Kalligrammofon (Sweden) forthcoming
"Common Wealth " (LP/CD) 2010 --- Gnome Life Records
"After Birth" (Mp3 EP) 2010 --- Gnome Live Free
"Songbread / Another Ocean" (Cassette) 2010 --- Kalligrammofon (Sweden)
"Songbread / Another Ocean" (LP) 2009 --- Gnome Life Records
"Songbread / Another Ocean" (CD+bonus EP) 2009 --- Gnome Life Records
"Sky" (2nd pressing LP) 2008 --- Gnome Life Records
"Sky" (CD) 2008 --- Kning Disk (Sweden)
"Antlers and the Sun..." (2nd pressing LP) 2008 --- Gnome Life Records
"Ecstatic Giving" (Mp3's) 2007 --- Gnome Live Free
"Sky" (1st pressing LP) 2007 --- Gnome Life Records
"Industrial Collapse" (7"EP) 2006 --- Gnome Life Records
"Antlers and the Sun..." (1st pressing LP) --- Gnome Life Records

Photos

Bio

Place is important. Bird By Snow was formed in the weather, wild, and little towns of Northern California. Cold water, dark woods. Fog in the branches, sunlight through a Pelican-wing. Abundance in all directions. This is the place that has informed the aesthetic of the whole Lo-fi, Pacific Northwest Indie Scene. Bird By Snow can be seen there too, but not limited to one view, instead at home in the limitless, expanding west. --- You’ll find genres bent as if light through a prism. Song-craft as ritual, where themes of primitivism, pagan meditations, and transcendent dronings breathe deeply. Only one constant member: words, tunes, recording and much playing by Fletcher Tucker.

Bird By Snow has been performing and recording since 2005; regularly traveling the US and Europe on seven tours (so far), sometimes performing solo, sometimes with a band, and occasioning to share the stage with many lovely people along the way... Mt. Eerie, Julie Doiron, Ariel Pink, Daniel Higgs, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and many more. In addition to the handsome tours Bird By Snow has performed at a handful of international festivals including several (((Folkyeah!))) happenings and festivals in Big Sur California, The Festival of Endless Gratitude (2009) in Copenhagen Denmark, and (most notably) at the auspicious Tanned Tin Festival (2007) in Castellón Spain, alongside new giants like the Sea and Cake, Deerhoof, and the Dirty Projectors.