Between 2005-2013, I recorded over a hundred songs as Bird By Snow, and performed probably twice as many shows on various DIY tours of Europe, the US, and Japan. Much of this music is well documented in four full length releases, but hard to come by EPs, outtakes, some unreleased material, and an impossible to find first album, account for another world of tunes. That world is now collected here, and offered to you in the spirit of creative open-handedness that was at the core of the Bird By Snow project.

A “band” in the style of time, Bird By Snow oscillated between the poles of a navel-gazing, solo performing/recording project, and a come-one-come-all, messy happening with pick-up bands assembled along tour routes. For the most part, most of the time, however the band was a two-piece with myself and the great multi-instrumentalist Spencer Owen. Therefore, the recorded body of work of Bird By Snow is as much a record of a highly generative collaboration, and deeply creative friendship, as it is anything else.

Bird By Snow was lo-fi, outsider, home-recorded, esoteric, quietly psychedelic, poly-rhythmic, primitivistic, melodically dense, earthy, unabashedly spiritual, intimate, and above all sincere… radically sincere. No irony and no fabrication. I didn’t write songs about other people’s experiences, or to make up stories. I just wrote about what I believed in, what felt honest and true, and what I hoped the world could be like. A cynical mind might call this pretentious, I would just call it being “wide open”.

– Fletcher Tucker
Big Sur, California
2023


TRACK NOTES:

1. “One White Flag” (2008) – Released on an EP of the same name. A classic Bird By Snow green-anarchist’s anthem about governments and borders disappearing into the wild embrace of the forgiving and ever patient Earth. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitars, drones. Spencer Owen – drums. Mania Lozinska – cello.

2. “Chew Your Fucking Legs Off” (2006) – From the “Industrial Collapse” 7” EP released between BBS’s first and second albums. A song about transcending suffering, especially the limitations of domestication/civilization. Very lo-fi. I remember writing this song on a bike ride by the ocean. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitars, dulcimer. Spencer Owen – bass, percussion.

3. “Darker Skin” (2005) – The first of a few tracks from BBS’s first (and never digitized) LP “Antlers and the Sun and all the Things that Grow old and Pass Away”, exploring seemingly dualistic concepts, in particular the gifts and ravages of time – primary themes of the album. Intentional sloppy, lo-fi vibes in the style of the age. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, autoharp. Spencer Owen – percussion.

4. “Wide” (2011) – From the “Subtle Body” EP. Some lovely home-taped goodness featuring guitar-body-percussion, minimal production, and lyrics about gradually opening radically to a local patch of Earth. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitars, percussion.

5. “Sean Lion” (2005) – Another tune form “Antlers and the Sun…” A languid, instrumental 4-track affair. My first foray into telling other people what to play so I could utilize more instruments (saxophone in this case). | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – guitar, tape manipulations. Spencer Owen – bass, percussion. Matt Longwell – alto saxophone.

6. “Fat New Born Baby” (2005) – Kind of the single from that first LP, “Antlers and the Sun…” We get a sense for that propulsive, hooky goodness that would be Bird By Snow, not to mention the playful self-mythologizing. I clearly had a cold at the time of recording. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, autoharp. Spencer Doran – percussion, autoharp.

7. “What There Actually Is” (2008) – An improvised instrumental piece from the “One White Flag” EP. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – banjo, percussion. Spencer Owen – percussion, piano. Mania Lozinska – cello.

8. “Wobbly Legs: Live in San Francisco, CA” (2009) – Despite playing hundreds of concerts, only a few live recordings exist of Bird By Snow. This one has a nice feeling, and really captures the projects vibe from that slice of time. It also features Spencer Owen switching from piano to drums for the third act, classic show-boating’. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, drones. Spencer Owen – piano, drums. Ludvig Cimbrelius – guitar.

9. “Truly Nameless” (2013) – The penultimate BBS recording, an organic, evocative little instrumental I made totally solo. Never released. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – guitars, percussion.

10. “No Beard Now” (2006) – A-side of the “Industrial Collapse” 7”. Possibly BBS’s weirdest song, using shaving as analogy for shedding layers of identity and reliance on illusions of safety. Intentionally over-the-top. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitars. Spencer Owen – percussion, bass. Matthew Baldwin – guitar solos.

11. “If You Wait: live in Visby, Sweden” (2007) – The first of a few solo performance recordings made in Visby, Sweden at the very end of long tour. I wrote most of the songs performed on the tour while on tour. This song was written on the ferry ride over to the show. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar.

12. “Helpless” (2009) – From the EP “After Birth”, which minimally reimagined several previously recorded BBS songs. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, steel drum, percussion, guitar.

13. “Sasquatch Sings” (2005) – A left over from recording “Antlers and the Sun…”, this song appeared on the Swedish CD compilation / collage zine called Hockey Rawk, Volume 1. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, dulcimer. Spencer Owen – percussion, tape manipulations.

14. “Caveman Baby: live in Visby, Sweden” (2007) – Playing solo again in Visby with electric guitar and a toy organ with taped down keys. I wrote this song in a parking lot beneath a mountain in the Lofoten Archipelago in Norway. A song about our timeless, primordial, untamable selves/world. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, organ drone.

15. “Caveman Baby II” – The only studio recording on this compilation, this is a reworking, and expanded version, of the above, with heavy nods to Niel Young & Crazy Horse. A playful, questionable vocal performance if I do say so myself. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar. Spencer Owen – drums, piano, bass. Sean Smith – guitar solos.

16. “Neither Ceiling, Nor Northern Sky” (2008) – Yet another oddity from the “One White Flag” EP, a multi-tracked all vocal recording with some intended dissonance. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voices.

17. “Antlers and the Sun” (2005) – The final track from the album of the same name, and the artist’s statement summarizing the intent of the work – breaking down false perceptions of dualism. The recording features tape-mangled hammering of a metal bucket. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, piano, tape manipulations. Spencer Owen – voice. Kelsey Barrett – voice. Noël Vietor – voice.

18. “Forget It” (2008) – The last track from the “One White Flag” EP. Drones, mountains of tape hiss, a bowed banjo, and dripping cave-walls of nylon string guitars… very Bird By Snow. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – guitar, percussion, tape manipulations, synth, melodica, banjo.

19. “Reflections” (2007) – The last live track from Visby, written on this tour in Reykvic, Iceland. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar.

20. “Rejoin the World” (2013) – The last Bird By Snow song ever written or recorded before the name was buried in the rich soil and reborn as my own. I digitally released this track not too long ago, but it felt an appropriate end to this compilation. | Track credits: Fletcher Tucker – voice, guitar, bass, leaf rattle, percussion, banjo.