ABSTRACTER is a crust/sudge/psych band from Oakland, CA, formed in 2010 by vocalist Mattia Alagna, who had recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area from Italy (where he fronted the noise/hardcore outfit (A)toll) and guitarist Robin Kahn, who had spent much of the year working on solo noise, drone, and improvisational projects, and who was looking to get something more organic and brutal off the ground. The two got in touch through Craigslist after they identified in each other their mutual love for “violent, bleak, and unearthly sounds”, a shared and generalized disgust for humanity, and their common love for bands like Godflesh, Bathory, Disembowelment, Swans and Amebix.
The band was then rounded out on bass by Mattia's close friend Jose Picou and by Ben James on drums. Bassist Jose Picou at the time was a standup bassist and multi-instrumentalist coming from a dark-wave and post-punk background, and drummer Ben James another multi-instrumentalist who had previously played the drums in Bay Area sludge metal band Damnweevil and the guitar in local hardcore/thrash outfit Tree Puncher, and who is also the current guitarist for bay area avant-black metal enigma Nihilotep.
Tomb Of Feathers is the band's first offering. Written over a span of just a few months, the recording displays the band's unique sound and style of songwriting, along with their broad array of influences, spanning from black metal, to crust and doom metal, to psychedelic rock, to hardcore punk and noise music. The work itself is a single-themed concept album about madness and mental disease as a result of the extreme and cynical individualism that permeates the world and humanity’s cowardly tendency to constantly leave the weak behind. The band has dedicated this recording to the last of the last, and to whoever has suffered from, or is currently battling mental disease and abandon.
Entirely self-produced and self-funded by the band, Tomb of Feathers was recorded live in three days (one track per day), directly to 22 track - 2 inch analog tape mounted on 30 minute reels processed by a mid-80’s Akai tape recorder, by sound engineer Josh Garcia (Depeche Mode, Melvins, Dwarves). The recordings were then passed on to Greg Wilkinson at Hearhammer Studios for mixing, and were then shipped to Philadelphia to be mastered by James Plotkin (ISIS, SUNN O))), OLD, Khanate, etc.). The band is currently writing their sophomore offering and are regularly playing selected shows in the broader bay Area, with confirmed shows coming up in the fall with the likes of City Of Ships, Young Lions, Ehnahre and Kayo Dot.
