Forest Fire is an experimental rock band living in New York City whose music is based around the songwriting of guitarist/vocalist Mark Thresher. Band members are guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Nathan Delffs, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Natalie Stormann, producer/keyboardist Adam Spittler & drummer Robert Pounding.
Forest Fire were originally discovered by tastemaking blogger Ryan Catbird after he randomly downloaded some of their music on a filesharing site because he liked the band name. In February of 2007 they released the Psychic Love Star EP, a hissy fiv-song batch (limited to 200 copies) on his imprint Catbird Records.
In June of 2008 Catbird Records released Survival, Forest Fire’s debut album, for free download. He released their debut album, Survival, on his own label in 2008; Infinite Best reissued it in the US in 2009 (with Broken Sound and Talitres handling Europe). Influential French site La Blogotheque declared Survival its top record of the year in 2008, calling it “raw and powerful… like a drug-hazed stroll through the history of song.”
Upon its 2009 reissue, Rough Trade Shops declared Survival one of the top ten records of the year, along with the likes of The xx, Grizzly Bear, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Animal Collective; in their writeup, the indie shop giant called the record “an absolute revelation.” Uncut Magazine gave it 4/5 stars and called it “An exercise in urban folk with art-punk underpinnings… Lyrically sharp, but musically savvy too.” FatCat plan to reissue Survival in early 2012.
Forest Fire has spent much of the years between releases touring, crossing Europe three times last year – once supporting Phosphorescent, and twice headlining their own shows and playing festival dates, including the UK’s End Of The Road and France’s Route Du Rock. They’ve shared stages with the likes of Sharon Van Etten (who contributed guest vocals to Survival), Xiu Xiu, Papercuts, Gang Gang Dance, Psychedelic Horseshit, Anna Calvi, Julianna Barwick and Cass McCombs, among others.Live, they cover a lot of ground between introspective folk, structured rock songs in the classic sense & Noise.