Thursday, July 22, 2010

Natural Snow Buildings: Ghost Folks (4.5/5)



Year: 2003
Genre: Psychedelic Folk Drone
Label: Hinah
TRT: 58:53


It’s been a few months since I was first introduced to this collaboration, and even with a good deal of dedicated listening, I’m still not even close to scratching the surface of their discography. In the past couple years, they’ve released a staggering amount of material, not just in number of albums, but also in breadth of content. Most are two disc sets, with each disc containing 70+ minutes of aural stimulation. That in and of it’s self is quite overwhelming on paper, but then when one actually starts listening…

I’ve chosen this album to review because so far it’s been the easiest to digest, clocking in at a mere 50 some minutes. But even so, I’m pressed for words to describe it. Well, that’s not entirely true. I could say “they are creating music that is outside the realm of consciousness. Ok maybe not quite, but the stark beauty here is delayed quicksand that you don't even realize you're sinking into until you're up to your mouth and begin to suffocate until you realize it's not sand but cosmic awareness of immense satisfaction.” but that still doesn’t really come close to unpacking and really grasping their material.

One thing I did realize whilst listening to this album, is my love for spoken word parts that are buried in the mix, and just give you a sense of “otherness”, that perhaps something is going on just outside your perception that you probably should pay attention to, yet can’t quite delineate. It’s unsettling, but it also sucks you in, and helps you connect with the recordings on a deeper level than you might otherwise. I love that.

So here it is, your entry point to a vast amassing of music that will confuse and unsettle you, and that you may never quite “get”. But for me at least, that’s all the more incentive to open the door and take the first step down the abandoned corridor, where one day has just died, and another has just begun.

01 Nuclear Winter (Dispatches)
02 If I Can Find My Way Though the Darkness...
03 ... I Came Down Here
04 Sun
05 The Haunted Falls (Let Us Now Praise Harry Powell)
06 Fallen Lords We Riding Half Horses
07 With a Stolen Red Lipstick Bible on Her Side
08 They are Still Hanging Around
09 (...)
10 Guns & Rifles
11 Nuclear Winter

Cry about not being able to buy it here

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