KIN
LP / Digital
August 15th, 2025
KIN
featuring: Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie, The Microphones), Mariam Wallentin (Fire! Orchestra, Mariam the Believer), Chuck Johnson, Sean Smith (LFZ), and Spencer Owen
limited edition of 1,000 LP’s; 500 black / 500 natural vinyl; tip-on “old-style” deluxe jackets; poetry & essay booklet; download included
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With a foundational palette comprised of “breathing" instruments (Swedish bagpipes, pump organ, elder and bamboo flutes, Mellotron saxophone and flute tapes), beneath chanted, animistic verse, “Kin” endeavors to exhale enchantment back into the living world.
Composed while hiking hundreds of miles through the remote Big Sur backcountry, “Kin’s” ritual text (lyrics) evokes and invokes Fletcher Tucker’s inner and outer journeys across uncanny trails of kinship with place. Tucker cultivates communion with mycelium and decaying stumps, blizzards and waterfalls, his own infant and ancestral spirits – and offers each one voice and tone, a chance for Mystery to speak for itself. Within “Kin’s” incantations you will find: a mythopoetic retelling of Tucker’s daughter’s birth as high ceremony; recollections of moments of radical clarity and aliveness in the wild; feral Zen philosophy; and an ornate description of Tucker’s own syncretic altar.
The ancient, psychospiritual technology of chanting is favored over singing throughout the album, while close, uncanny harmonies serve to widen gateways into liminal realms. Voices float atop clear, deep pools of acoustic drones. The surface of this water shimmers and ripples with rhythmic and melodic disturbances: sonic offerings of bells, bowls, gongs, chimes, analog synthesizers, 12-string electric guitars, pedal steel, bass, humla (bowed Swedish mountain zither), all manner of drums, clacking oak branches, and rattling leaves.
Potent collaborations with a few esteemed friends – Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Mariam Wallentin (Fire! Orchestra, Mariam the Believer), Chuck Johnson, Sean Smith (LFZ), and Spencer Owen – enrich “Kin’s” domain of animacy and enchantment.
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A Candle
Great Flowering Mind
Pregnant Emptiness
Only Dancing
To Light a Fire
Born Back into the Earth
The Breathing Night
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“Our owls here enjoy Fletcher’s poetry” – Aaron Weaver of Wolves in the Throne Room
Biography
Fletcher Tucker (born 1983) is an interdisciplinary artist and practitioner of animistic, earth-reverent skills and philosophies, residing on the unceded Esselen tribal lands now known as Big Sur, California. Since 2005, Tucker has released nine full-length albums of music, under various project names, on labels based in Germany, Sweden, Japan, and the United States. Tuckers’ most recent records, released under his given name, explore relationality –– aural and poetic expressions of his ever deepening relationships to place, ancestors, ceremonial practice, and kinfolk (human and more-than-human).
Tucker is the founder of the analog record label Gnome Life Records –– releasing experimental and ambient music, outsider folk, and spoken word by West Coast artists since 2005 (including works by Robbie Basho, Daniel Higgs, Little Wings and many more). In addition to his artistic work, Tucker is the co-founder of Wildtender, an organization dedicated to helping people cultivate intimacy with the earth, and reciprocal relationships with the natural world. Tucker is also teaching faculty at the Esalen Institute and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.
Discography
2025 • “Kin” • Fletcher Tucker • LP • Gnome Life / Adagio 830 (forthcoming)
2021 • “Reflections: Gnome Life Artists & Friends Cover Each Other” • Cassette/Digital • Gnome Life Records
2021 • “Unlit Trail" • Fletcher Tucker • LP/Cassette • Adagio 830
2019 • “Myddyng" • Fletcher Tucker • Digital EP • Gnome Life Records
2018 • “Womb of Light" • Fletcher Tucker • 7" EP • Gnome Life Records
2017 • “Cold Spring" • Fletcher Tucker • LP • Gnome Life Records
2013 • “Offering" • Bird By Snow • Japanese CD version • Rondade
2012 • “Offering" • Bird By Snow • LP • Gnome Life Records
2011 • “Subtle Body" • Bird By Snow • Cassette EP • Gnome Life Records
2011 • “Native Tongue" • Yurt • Cassette • Gnome Life Records
2010 • “Afterbirth" • Bird By Snow • EP • Gnome Life Records
2010 • “Common Wealth" • Bird By Snow • LP/CD • Gnome Life Records
2010 • “One White Flag" • Bird By Snow • EP • Gnome Life Records
2010 • “Songbread/Another Ocean" • Bird By Snow • Swedish Cassette version • Kaligrammofon
2009 • “Songbread/Another Ocean" • Bird By Snow • LP/CD • Gnome Life Records
2008 • “Sky" • Bird By Snow • Swedish CD version • Kning Disk
2007 • “Sky" • Bird By Snow • LP • Gnome Life Records
2006 • “Industrial Collapse" • Bird By Snow • 7" EP • Gnome Life Records
2005 • “Antlers and the Sun and All the Things that Grow Old and Pass Away" • Bird By Snow • LP • Gnome Life Records
Production & Performance Discography
Producer • “Be Earth Now: Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows Recite Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's ‘The Book of Hours'" • Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows
Performer/Producer • "Sweep the Temple" • Fountainsun
Performer • "Explains" • Little Wings
Performer/Producer • "Music Today" • Fountainsun
Performer/Producer • "Made it Rain" • Little Wings
Producer • "The Measure of Mystery" • Daniel Higgs
Performer • "Eternal" • Sean Smith
CONCERTS
April 20th, 2025 • Big Sur Grange Hall • 7-9:30pm
Record release shows in August, dates forthcoming.
European tour in Autumn, dates forthcoming.
Check back here for updates, or follow on Instagram.