Bird By Snow - Sky

Bird By Snow were a band that often played gigs in people's houses or on the beach when I lived in Santa Cruz, and it's good to see that they've grown to the point where they release their first CD in Europe this week, entitled Sky and released on Swedish label Kning Disk. They share the same underground Californian psychedelic folk sound as bands like Whysp and Little Wings (and more famously Vetiver and Devandra Banhart), a kind of tousled organic intimacy that forms a dusty niche away from the sheen of modern life. You can definitely hear the influence of Phil Elverum's Microphones/Mt. Eerie, the latter of whom Bird By Snow has supported in the past. This track has a fantastic slowly loping groove to it, overlayed with wheezing accordian and shamanic repeated vocals.

Bird By Snow - The Sound And The River Within The Sound

Takes me right back to magical SC, where I often used to share my walk to lectures with a family of deer, and bought incredible paintings by homeless hippies on walks back from the beach. Despite relocating to the Bay Area and travelling all over the world, Bird By Snow seems to have retained some of that Santa Cruz acid-hippie ethos:

"Open eyes wide, and take in “Sky,” bird by snow’s outrageously lush follow-up LP. Cloudy or clear, day or night, let us be absorbed in the one-always-giving moment, and know the sky not as vacuous hole, but as container (whole)."

You can buy Sky from the label website or from Bird By Snow's website, including the original LP version in mouth-watering gold sleeve with transparent blue vinyl and luxury booklet:

What a beauty. There's also a free live album from a gig on an island in the Baltic Sea you can download.