Natural Snow BuildingsNight Coercion Into the Company of Witches
(2008, no label)
RIYL = Axolotl, Double Leopards, Mouthus
It is odd, but pretty safe to say that you don’t have this album and that you never will. A triple disc aural monstrosity, Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches (will be referred to as Night Coercion from here on out) was self released last year as an edition of 22 hand painted copies. It is absolutely insane to me that Natural Snow Buildings would put so much effort to create such a grandiose musical mega-behemoth only to limit its physical remnants to the seemingly irrelevant total of 22 copies. Just for the record, I also do not own a copy of Night Coercion. I pirated the thing and you should too. It is simply too amazing to be limited to those physical copies. Many of you may not be familiar with Natural Snow Buildings. I myself am no real expert on the band, but the proportions of their releases coupled with the unbending standard of their sound is simply beyond epic. Add to that an innumerable, sometimes untraceable discography and you got yourself the foundations of a myth my friend. Yet, somehow, the mysterious band lives up to, if not exceeds, the mythic swirl that surrounds them. Natural Snow Buildings are simply the purest form of DIY artistry in music that I have ever seen. I just could go on saying ‘wow’ all day. But what’s the point? Well, if you can manage to forget everything that surrounds the actual music, Night Coercion is probably one of the best drone based albums on the planet. Ha, that sounds so dramatic. And I’m not positive it is true, but it is definitely good enough to have me considering such a statement. The music here is dense. Thick layers of audio forestry that give one the sense of being lost in an enchanted jungle. The movement of the album’s compositional shifts are slow - like, Disintegration Loops slow - but Natural Snow Buildings pull it off as well as Basinski, it’s just where Basinski’s works were decaying, Natural Snow Buildings’ work seems to be growing ever so slowly out of control. Night Coercion stretches two and one half hours in running time and yet manages to stay completely engrossing from the beginning of first CD to the end of the third. I don’t know how it’s done, but Natural Snow Buildings definitely have enchantment on their side. Utterly astounding stuff.
-Mr. Thistle
3 comments:
I always kind of put off listening to Natural Snow Buildings due to hype and a misunderstanding of their aesthetic. After reading this review, I know I need to track down some of their stuff. Anything that gets compared to the masterpiece that is The Disintegration Loops is immediately worthy of a listen.
Mr. Thistle!
Why hello.
It's that long-haired blue-book-forgetting fool who knows and cares almost as little about Mina Loy as you do.
I hate to leave this as a post but both your e-mail links are out of order at the moment and I told you I'd let you know expressly when my EP came out.
And it's out.
And it's free for the downloading at
http://www.lukewilliamsmusic.com
I'd love to hear what you have to say, even if it's just how bad you hated it.
you can email me at luke@lukewilliamsmusic.com
if you want.
It is certainly a good release, but now that 'Daughter of Darkness' has appeared 'night coercion...' fades away and becomes a bit forgotten (the packaging is astounding though). Where 'night coercion...' loses it's grip is the duration of it, it feels too long, whereas 'Daughter of darkness' makes you want to listen forever.
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