"Cold Spring" is an artifact of Fletcher Tucker’s deep inhabitation of Big Sur, California. Recorded gradually over the course of four years, songs were gathered on cloud-hidden peaks, wrung out from moss, and received while splitting wood, pushing through brush, and making camp. These recordings serve as trails, leading deep into a mythopoetic backcountry where forgotten mysticism and abandoned ancestral knowledge resurface.
In arranging the soundscapes of "Cold Spring", Tucker took inspiration from Gregorian chants, Shakuhachi (zen flute) compositions, ancient Chinese paintings of mountains and mist, and of course the landscape of Big Sur itself. Analog synthesizers surge like storm-swollen creeks. A 110-year-old pump organ rumbles up from the depths of a ravine. Drones from 12-string electric guitars flicker like torchlight. Distinct aural-textures – buzzing rosined bows, resonant bells, trembling leaf rattles – punctuate the sound-world of "Cold Spring". Ethereal harmonies by Molly Erin Sarlé (of Mountain Man) drift above Tucker’s dark baritone.
In Tucker’s words, “'Cold Spring' is an invitation to draw the blade of your mind across a whetstone of mythos and song. To hone your awareness of the uncanny, sense into the liminal, and awake within a vast atavistic wilderness.”
"Cold Spring" is the first LP released by Fletcher Tucker under his own name. Tucker created five full-length albums and several EP’s under the project name Bird By Snow (the last, "Offering", was released in 2012). Tucker has performed on and produced records by Little Wings, Fountainsun, and Daniel Higgs. He is also the founder of Gnome Life Records.
