Natural Snow Buildings
Biography
In the shadowy corners of the French underground, where drone meets folk and ambient collides with psychedelia, Natural Snow Buildings have spent over two decades crafting some of the most enigmatic and expansive music ever committed to tape. This mysterious duo, consisting of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, emerged from Vitry-sur-Seine in the late 1990s like sonic archaeologists, unearthing forgotten frequencies and weaving them into sprawling tapestries of sound that defy conventional categorization.
From their earliest releases, Natural Snow Buildings established themselves as uncompromising artists operating entirely outside the mainstream music industry's gravitational pull. Their approach to music-making resembles less a traditional band dynamic and more an alchemical process, where guitars dissolve into walls of static, field recordings merge with ancient folk melodies, and time itself seems to stretch and contract like elastic. Ameziane and Gularte create music that exists in its own temporal dimension, where a single track might unfold over twenty minutes or more, taking listeners on journeys through desolate landscapes and forgotten civilizations.
The duo's prolific output is staggering in both quantity and scope. Their discography reads like a fever dream, with albums bearing titles like "The Dance of the Moon and the Sun," "Daughter of Darkness," and "The Winter Ray." These aren't merely collections of songs but immersive experiences that demand complete surrender from the listener. Their 2006 release "The Dance of the Moon and the Sun" stands as perhaps their most accessible entry point, a double album that showcases their ability to balance meditative drone passages with moments of unexpected beauty and fragility.
What sets Natural Snow Buildings apart from their contemporaries in the drone and ambient scenes is their fearless incorporation of diverse musical elements. Medieval folk traditions sit comfortably alongside crushing walls of distortion, while whispered vocals in multiple languages float through the mix like ghostly transmissions from another realm. Their use of unconventional instruments – everything from harmoniums to prepared guitars to found objects – creates a sonic palette that's both ancient and futuristic.
The band's creative process is as mysterious as their music. Working primarily from their home studio, they've developed a methodology that embraces chance and intuition over rigid structure. Sessions can last for days, with the duo layering sounds upon sounds until they achieve what they describe as "sonic saturation." This approach has resulted in some of the most densely packed yet surprisingly coherent music in the experimental underground.
Their influence extends far beyond their immediate genre, inspiring a generation of artists to push beyond conventional song structures and embrace the transformative power of sustained sound. Musicians from the post-rock, black metal, and neo-folk scenes have all cited Natural Snow Buildings as a crucial influence, drawn to their uncompromising vision and complete disregard for commercial considerations.
The duo's live performances are rare and legendary affairs, often lasting several hours and incorporating visual elements that complement their sonic explorations. Those fortunate enough to witness these events describe them as transcendent experiences, where the boundaries between performer and audience dissolve in waves of overwhelming sound.
Despite their underground status, Natural Snow Buildings have garnered critical acclaim from adventurous music journalists and have developed a devoted cult following worldwide. Their releases, often issued in limited editions through boutique labels like Ba Da Bing! and Blackest Rainbow, become collector's items almost immediately upon release.
Recent years have seen the duo continuing to evolve while maintaining their core aesthetic principles. Their 2019 album "The Centaur" demonstrated their ongoing commitment to pushing boundaries, incorporating elements of musique concrète and field recording into their already expansive sound world. As streaming services struggle to categorize their hour-long compositions and algorithm-driven playlists fail to capture their essence, Natural Snow Buildings remain defiantly analog in a digital world.
In an era of instant gratification and bite-sized content, Natural Snow Buildings stand as monuments to the power of patience and deep listening. Their music rewards those willing to surrender to its hypnotic pull, offering glimpses of altered states of consciousness and forgotten ways of experiencing sound. They remain active, mysterious, and essential – sonic shamans guiding listeners through landscapes that exist nowhere else but in the spaces between silence and noise, between the conscious and the sublime.
