There is a stench here so old that it rids the body of any uncertainty. It is a comfortable rapture. The stench comes not from distant swamps, putrescent and green in their small wakes, or the mounds of bone matter and meat made dust underfoot. This waft of hidden and yet all-too demanding treasures lifts itself steadily from the bated, beating wings of the Bird, on its eternal voyage somewhere far past home.
Utilising both analogue synthesis and a dynamic range of acoustic instrumentation, Bird From the Abyss' Matias Aaltonen crafts definitively archaic compositions and flawlessly timed improvisations steeped in universal mystery. The tectonic movements developing and unfolding from these unholy hymns mold and fold into one another, cutting clear marks across certain borders while blurring any known remnants of others.
This eponymous opus combines three previously-released and long out of print EPs (I, II & III), a track created as an 'electronic synthesiser installation' (Electric Forest), and two previously unreleased tracks.
Press for Bird From the Abyss
This is without doubt the most beautifully packaged tape release we have had the pleasure of selling on Stashed Goods! Lot's of love and care have gone into these little beauties. [STASHED GOODS]
Over the course of the two tapes totaling four sides of experimentations I get the sense that a crew of shamanic spirits discovered amplification and excitedly added it to their instrumentation like early man enthusiastically discovering fire. The variety of genres that are utilized here takes you all over the map. The travels that the Bird carries you through range from pagan folkery to doom drudgery, from calm stillness to windblown disturbances, from lucid visions to foggy drone. [FOXY DIGITALIS]
Describing the sound that Bird from the Abyss creates is as difficult as the music is unique. The production is gritty/dirty and instrumentation relatively simplistic, but the presence and composition of the tracks is not. While many tracks can be considered experimental in nature, the more traditional acoustic-oriented ones have a unique majestic flavor that at times somehow remind one of raw, instrumental versions of Moon Occults the Sun-style Espers, minus the stringed arrangements. Present in most tracks is the sometimes ritual, sometimes ominous percussion, flute and fuzz-bass / guitar that help to create that “deep in the wilderness” feeling. Thus, the music becomes ritual in the tribal sense, taking on a very natural and open-world sound. [HEATHEN HARVEST]
- Purchase Relic
red c60 + c40 cassette shells handstamped + inked in black // handcut, dyed + scored custom chipboard O-cards + insert // handstamped red 8.5" by 8.5" insert with black lettering // handnumbered & stamped in roman numerals // runtime [0:52:34 / 0:36:10]
| A01 | Intro / Beginning At The Center Of Chaos / Azathoth And Flute | ||
| A02 | Song To The Great Black Fox | ||
| A03 | Ways Of Slaughter | ||
| A04 | Abdul Alhazred's Anxiety | ||
| A05 | Crawling Monuments | ||
| A06 | Travelling With The Bird - Part 1 | ||
| B01 | Kyyn Laulu | ||
| B02 | From The Altars Of Fire To The Kingdom of Ereskigal | ||
| B03 | Travelling With The Bird - Part 2 - Back To The Abyss | ||
| C01 | Neck Deep In Swampy Mud | ||
| C02 | Powers Hidden | ||
| D01 | Interlude from Abandoned Well | ||
| D02 | Electric Forest | ||
| D03 | Horrors of... | ||
| D04 | Seven Gateways of Clark Ashton Smith |
about Bird From the Abyss
Bird From the Abyss was the solo recording project of J. Matias Aaltonen, based in Kangasala, Finland. Utilising both analogue synthesis and a dynamic range of acoustic instrumentation, Bird From the Abyss' Matias Aaltonen crafts definitively archaic compositions and flawlessly timed improvisations steeped in universal mystery.
