Natural Snow Buildings: The Centauri Agent (4/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Not Metal" Picks for 2010
#10 of 10




Year: 2010
Genre: Psychedelic Folk Drone
Label: Vulpiano
TRT: 106:57

A Massive 2-disc venture, Natural Snow Buildings creates a unique vastness, an expanse unparalleled by anything but their own catalog. This is the soundtrack for swirling endlessly through the vacuum of space.

Disc 1

o1	Our Man From Centauri
o2	The Accidental Remote Viewer

Disc 2

01	The Psychic Circle/Uchronia
02	Black Holes
03	The Storm of Resurrection
04	Moscow Signal
05	Phantom Twin
06	Stuttering Probe
07	Solar Flares
08	Emergency Network Farewell Broadcast
09	Memories Found in a Bill From a Small Animal Vet

Natural Snow Buildings on Vulpiano Records

Mains de Givre: Esther Marie (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Not Metal" Picks for 2010
#6 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Classical Drone
Label: Textura
TRT: 46:29

Mains de Givre (Frost Hands) is a a partnership between experimentalist/guitarist Eric Quach and classically trained violinist Emilie Livernois-Desroches. What they've managed to do here is created a wonderfully dense soundscape of whirling, swirling, and often enveloping washes of slowly evolving loops and variations originating from strings, more often violin than guitar, but melded together expertly. The result is at once menacing and ominous, while somehow hinting at light on the cusp of breaking through the brooding storm clouds.

Not too shabby for a couple of Canadians.

01 Un Chœur Dâmes En Détresse
02 Le Cercle Des Moeurs
03 Cauchemar Noir Et Rouge
04 Larmes Sanglantes

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Necrite: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Metal" Picks for 2010
#10 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal Drone
Label: Flenser Records
TRT: 70:10

Thus passes the glory of the world. That's how the Latin translates. It has Templar Masonic origins, and has quite a few occultic and Lovecraftian implications.

This album is about the complete annihilation of everyone. The first three tracks are meant to rub the face of humankind in the "filth" of it's own existence, while the rest of the album transitions, as the band puts it, "from painting a picture of human disease, to a vision of cleansing. It is a worship of Armageddon and the end of life in which everything is reset to a pure blackness."

pretty nihilistic stuff, but this message and ethos are perfectly complimentary to the utter black abyss that the music found here evokes. Nasty, ugly, filthy, and as heavy as the subject matter demands, this is an album to listen to with all the hatred in your heart exposed and gloating.

01	A Mass for the Harvest of Death
02	Bereft of Hope
03	Bathing Open Wounds With Shards of Glass
04	Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
05	Worship the Sunn((O))

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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

Transitional: Stomach of the Sun (4/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Metal Albums of 2009
#6 of 10



Year: 2009
Genre: Atmospheric Drone Metal
Label: Conspiracy
TRT: 68:18

I was really looking forward to this release after their debut EP last year.

When it finally came out, I couldn't find it for download or purchase anywhere. Eventually a 112kbs version surfaced, which I assume was ripped directly from the stream that their label had up for awhile.

Even at that less than desirable quality, I could tell this album was worth owning. Finally I was able to track down a physical copy of my own, and I was not disappointed.

While their choice to open the album up with a 13+ minute directionless drone track is a little questionable, the rest of the album more than balances it out. Huge wall of noise paintings framed with meaty sludge riffs galore, and minimal vocals here and there for atmosphere and flavor.

I look forward to more great things from this English duo.

01 Vacant Monolith Rotation
02 Pyramid
03 In My Collapse
04 Drowning
05 Blue Sky Fall
06 Hideaway
07 El Baron
08 Stomach of the Sun
09 Worst Eyes Shut

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Grouper: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2008
#2 out of 10


Year: 2008
Genre: Atmospheric Acoustic Drone
Label: Type Records
TRT: 45:41

Liz Harris has been creating static-drenched drone albums for several years now, but with this release, she progresses her sound further than ever. Instead of focusing on the guitars and the feedback, these elements act as a cocoon of sorts, a framework of sounds that support her quiet vocal stylings and acoustic guitar strumming. The result is warm and inviting, and very relaxing, while maintaining a certain quality of unease to challenge your comfort level and keep you engrossed.

I was not at all surprised to find out Grouper hails from the same Portland music scene as Valet.

01 Disengaged
02 Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping
03 Stuck
04 When We Fall
05 Traveling Through a Sea
06 Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted in the Evening Breeze)
07 Invisible
08 Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
09 A Cover Over
10 Wind and Snow
11 Tidal Wave
12 We''ve All Time to Sleep

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Earth: The Bees Made Honey in the Lions Skull (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2008
#4 out of 10 (tie)


Year: 2008
Genre: Southern Drone Rock
Label: Southern Lord
TRT: 53:24

Perfectly crafted tracks with immense depth and character are nothing new from these pioneers, but who would have guessed drone could be this catchy? Never before has a drone album captured my attention as fully as this one. This has to be the most accessible drone record ever written. Earth have truly reinvented themselves, and I for one am extremely impressed.

01 Omens and Portents I: The Driver
02 The Driver
03 Miami Morning Coming Down II (Shine)
04 Engine of Ruin
05 Omens and Portents II: The Carrion Crow
06 Hung From the Moon
07 The Bees Made Honey In The Lions' Skull

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Transitional: Nothing Real Nothing Absent (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Metal Albums of 2008
#5 out of 10


Year: 2008
Genre: Shoegaze Drone Sludge
Label: Conspiracy
TRT: 33:12

Comprised of Kevin Laska and Dave Cochrane, Transitional crafts dark and moody music. This release has a decidedly old-school Heart Ache sound to it, with a good dose of Sun Down/Sun Rise as well, which is not surprising since Cochrane collaborated with Justin Broadrick on that project in the past. Oscillating between heavy lows and atmospheric highs, Transitional has put together a very satisfying release, who’s largest fault lies in it’s frustratingly inadequate length.

01 Nowhere Shining
02 Fracture
03 This Paradise, Part I
04 This Paradise, Part II
05 Lustless
06 Abandonment

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Jesu: Heart Ache (5/5)

Year: 2004
Genre: Ambient Drone Doomgaze
Label: Dry Run
TRT: 39:55

This is Justin Broadrick at his finest. When he takes his time, doesn't rush things along, and just lets the music unfold as it will, the soundscapes he creates are breathtaking.

Some might look at the lengths of the two tracks here and shy away, and that's ok. at twenty minutes a piece, they're ponderous and intimidating at first blush. But don't let that fool you. Each track starts out soft and warm, slowly building upon itself to realize the monstrosity they become.

This EP is as massive as it is melancholic and as crushing as it is romanticly sad.

01 Heart Ache
02 Ruined

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Sunn O))) & Boris: Altar (4.5/5)

Year: 2006
Label: Southern Lord
Genre: Atmospheric Drone
TRT: 53:43

I picked this album up on a complete whim because the packaging was so sleek and appealing. I'm a casual fan of both bands, but nothing could have prepared me for what was lying in wait.

This album completely shocked me, because it is almost nothing like what I would have expected either group involved to release. When I think of Sunn O))) I think of plodding, destroyingly loud static-filled wall-of-sound and Boris will forever be labeled as "drone" in my mind (however unfair that may be).

While Altar is definately a drone release, it's calming, seductive and absolutely, stunningly, beautiful. Again, nothing could have prepared me for something like this. I don't normally like to highlight certain tracks on an album, as I'd rather let you make up your own mind as to which songs are the best, but The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep) literally took my breath away. If you listene to nothing else of this record, listen to that one song.

Altar is by far my favorite release from either collaborator, and I long for more such releases. The sum truly is greater than its parts.

01 Etna
02 N.L.T.
03 The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)
04 Akuma No Kuma
05 Fried Eagle Mind
06 Blood Swamp