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 EPs 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.

SAMPLE TRACKS

TRACK LIST

SIDE A:  1. Unborn Mind  2. Dark Teaching  3. Shadow Bridge  4. I Became Smoke  5. Graveyard Gate  6. Celestial Underworld  7. Small Gods  8. Hidden by the Day

SIDE B:  1. Cloud-Hidden  2. Buried on the Wind  3. Torchlight on the Cavewall  4. The Mountain Bows  5. Obsidian Mirror  6. Descend  7. Cloud-Revealed

MORE ABOUT THIS RELEASE

The cassette is a pro-dub, stereo, chrome, type II, high bias tape – the highest fidelity cassette and duplication available. The tape also comes with a digital (Mp3 or FLAC) download.

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"Don't have time to spend 7 years in Big Sur [California] staring into the void? Listen to 'Cold Spring'! Fletcher Tucker's deep immersion masterpiece... a powerful and haunting transmission of fire and earth." – Devendra Banhart

"In 'Cold Spring', Tucker sinks into the redwoods and roots out something ancient and always. [A] truly incredible record." – Lars Gotrich, NPR

"Calling it an album about nature feels limiting. It is, more so, a reflection of an artist's total immersion in the idea of 'place,' its spectral songs often swallowed up in the shadows of giant redwoods, the coos of owls, and the howls of far-off coyotes... While so often mystical and contemplative music focuses on ecstatic sounds, centering on buoyancy and uplift, 'Cold Spring' is unreservedly dark at times. Like nature itself, the record can feel spooky, inspiring an awe that comes close to dread...over and over again, the completed record bears [Fletcher Tucker] out, sounding thoroughly haunted, an arboraceous, psychedelic journey that reveals more with each listen." – Jason Woodbury, Aquarium Drunkard

"I was instantly transported. Whatever mojo [Fletcher Tucker] was working there amongst the redwoods really has made it to the wax. It is a haunted, and haunting record with the spirit of place." – Erik Davis, Expanding Mind podcast

“Tucker evokes Big Sur’s natural grandeur with echo-shrouded vocals, shimmering synthesizers, wildlife field recordings, booming drums… [yet] one suspects that he spent as much time paring back as he spent building up. Each note and line occupies its own space in a big, uncluttered sound field, and each song moves at a pace that reinforces the solemnity of the proceedings.” – The Wire Magazine

MORE RELEASES BY FLETCHER TUCKER (AND RELATED PROJECTS)