Page 1 of 4

Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 5:57 am
by Baysman
Birds Through Fire is an international electronica chamber ensemble based in Melbourne, Sydney and Ithaca. Band members are Robby Aceto, Paul Cartwright and Paul Smyth. Their debut album " Letters To Thurza " has been mastered by David Torn, and is due for release in early 2015.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:23 pm
by Quiet Visitor
Thanks. This information however has partly already been posted in another section (Open Season) in this thread.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 1:45 am
by Baysman
Apologies if this " news " has been threaded on another section. I haven't posted in such a long time. The album is deep, emotive and glorious beautiful. It is in the process of finding a label :)

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:20 am
by Quiet Visitor
Baysman wrote:Apologies if this " news " has been threaded on another section. I haven't posted in such a long time. The album is deep, emotive and glorious beautiful. It is in the process of finding a label :)


Don't worry, sometimes music deserves more attention than just one thread :wink:

Would be cool if Burning Shed would pick this one up. Although Robby Aceto made a beautiful solo-album on Alchemy Records years ago, it seems label-owner Jon Durant only releases his own music on it these days.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 12:23 am
by Baysman
It will not be released through Burning Shed. I have heard through the grapevine that it may be released independently in a limited edition capacity. Luckily I have a promo copy of the album, and it is truly a beautiful piece of work. A few surprise guests, but it was all written,recorded and mixed by Aceto, Cartwright and Smyth in various cities across Australia and the U.S.

No doubt all will be revealed in the near future. I will keep you all in the loop :D

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 10:43 pm
by Baysman
I have Robby's " Code " album which I love. Sadly I've never managed to get any material by his band " Red Letter ". Would love to hear it sometime.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:13 pm
by Quiet Visitor
Baysman wrote:I have Robby's " Code " album which I love. Sadly I've never managed to get any material by his band " Red Letter ". Would love to hear it sometime.


I managed to order Red Letter's "True North" through a very small internet-shop.

Maybe this link will give you the opportunity to listen to some of their stuff: http://www.sonosphere.com/ and maybe you're lucky when you try http://dougwyatt.net/Store/ to order it directly from Doug Wyatt, the keyboard-player form Red Letter.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:18 pm
by Quiet Visitor
B.t.w. I guess you also know Stefano Panunzi's "A Rose" on which Aceto can be heard in a couple of tracks. Well, Mick Karn is on it, so you probably have it already :wink:

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 8:00 pm
by Baysman
Cheers for the leads. I love a little detective work when it comes to finding music that you are searching for. Much appreciated.

I do have the Stefano Panunzi material. I still love " The Human Age " off the JBK " Beginning To Melt " album. Remains a favourite of mine.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:27 pm
by Quiet Visitor
Baysman wrote:
I do have the Stefano Panunzi material. I still love " The Human Age " off the JBK " Beginning To Melt " album. Remains a favourite of mine.


Same over here!

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 1:28 pm
by Quiet Visitor
All tracks from Letters To Thurza can be heard on http://www.birdsthroughfire.com/letters ... rza-1.html

There's a nice piece on Portrait Of Amber, dedicated to Mick Karn.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 8:44 am
by Quiet Visitor
Seems this will be a March release: http://www.birdsthroughfire.com/news.html

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:14 pm
by inkinthewell
Quiet Visitor wrote:Seems this will be a March release: http://www.birdsthroughfire.com/news.html

Jolly good.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 12:08 am
by Baysman
Interesting story. Great reading the little insights to the songs. Like I said, I have a promo copy, and the pieces take on a different shape when you read how they were made........Birds Through Fire have made a great album. My favourite track being " Poeme " which features Maia Vidal on spoken word.

An Englishman, an American and an Australian walk into a virtual recording studio. In each individual, a shared idea stirs many emotions. Across the long distances common interests are discovered; favourite music, intellectual movements of the 20th century, the visual arts, literature, history, film, design, kids, nature, riddles of existence, the unfathomable questing character of love. Romanticism with a Dadaist sensibility.

From the blue of the oceans that separate them, the forward-looking idea emerges of using the Internet as a collaborative tool. Early experiments are made, files uploaded, files downloaded, worked upon, recordings made, and in the process transforming events occurred. The three begin to bond by sharing their thoughts and ideas; not just musical ideas but also thoughts touching on books, inspirations, daily musings, meteorological observations of simultaneous moments in northern hemisphere-southern hemisphere... and of course and always, the occasional joke. This bonding fosters a free flowing exchange of musical cells and a deeper understanding begins to develop which touches on the directions the "band" could take... and the potential for the making of a new album. Birds Through Fire is born.

Paul Smyth ( The Englishman ) and Paul Cartwright ( The Australian ) met in Adelaide, South Australia in the late 90's through a common interest in music, art and the way that both these cultures were represented in Australia, or indeed what was lacking in the southern landscape.

With these interests, they decided to form the duo Avida Dollars ( an anagram Andre Breton used for Surrealist painter Salvador Dali meaning " Eager For Dollars "). The two spent the first few years writing and recording in Smyth's studio " Nero's Bunker " and digitally releasing one album " Start Ups and Break Downs " in 2003. However both Paul's said farewell to Adelaide, with Smyth moving to Sydney and Cartwright to Melbourne in early 2004.

Fast forward to 2010. It was announced that former Japan bassist Mick Karn was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Both Smyth and Cartwright being great admirers of Karn's work, were deeply affected by this news, and set about writing a piece with Karn in mind. Cartwright explains " Being so far away from Europe, and hearing that news made us feel very distant and we wanted to do more than just sit back and monitor the information that came to us via the internet. We wanted to be pro-active. It was a way for us to turn a negative into a positive ".

With fellow musician / programmer Ian Vaughan, the trio put together a musical sketch that developed into the track " A Portrait Of Amber ". " Ian provided the initial drum patterns that I based my bass parts on ". Cartwright explains. " We were all in different cities, so we would email small fragments of musical idea's to Paul in Sydney, and he assembled the piece that became the basic demo ".

During that time, they formed a friendship with UK bassist Matthew Seligman ( Thomas Dolby, David Bowie, Morrissey etc ). After hearing the sketch, it was at Seligman's suggestion that a vocal be added. and the search was on for someone who could that take the track to the next level…..enter ( The American :)

The final piece in the formation of Birds Through Fire came into play when Cartwright contacted guitarist David Torn, who too had worked with Mick Karn. It was Torn that suggested he contact Robby Aceto ( The American ).

Robby is a guitarist / multi-instrumentalist / singer / composer, who has worked with artists such as Tom Tom Club, Cloud Chamber Orchestra, Talking Heads, David Sylvian and JBK ( Japan members Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Mick Karn ).

Excited by the end results of " A Portrait of Amber ", The three musicians decided that the project should result in an album which the process would be as follows;

Paul Cartwright would make some song sketches and pass them on to Paul Smyth who in turn would through copious processing and synthetic overdubbing would convert the sketches into moods to facilitate further inspiration. A rough mix would then be passed to Robby and Paul Cartwright for comment and once all parties were satisfied, stems* would be sent to Robby. Robby would then rearrange the mix where necessary and overdub vocal and other instrumental parts. as you can see, a true musical troika. All this was possible thanks to products like DropBox.

We are confident that the material Birds Through Fire release will be a result of all our interactions and despite having never met in a studio together the work will become the product of three creative minds working as one.

Re: Birds Through Fire - Letters To Thurza

PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:11 am
by Baysman
BTW....I went back and revisited Robby's album " Code " the other day. Some great moments on that record. The track " Bells " is a favourite. :D