Shadow Kingdom, by Natural Snow Buildings (Triple LP on Blackest Rainbow)

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This record left our Brett feeling ecstatic.

Shadow Kingdom is an excellent Natural Snow Buildings album. That's pretty much all that those who've heard them will need to know but for the uninitiated, NSB are a boy/girl duo from France and they operate in two distinct modes which they then mix together in varying quantities as the mood takes them. The first tends to dominate, a kitchen sink drone style (featuring guitar, piano, harmonica, cello, plenty of pedals and whatever else happens to be around in their room at the time) which goes against the currently prevailing drone fashion for ultra-minimal cookie-cutter borescapes with a busy sound in which there are always plenty of points of interest to latch on to. The second style, gorgeous folk balladry, crops up less regularly but always provides highlights and is all the more fascinating for the revelation that the sweet voice who voices the tracks so enchantingly actually belongs to Medhi, the male of the band. The recordings are very lo-fi and full of overloaded mics and feedback, something which is crucial to their earthy appeal, keeping them grounded in this world (or some alternate version of it) while others go in search of the cosmic. It's a similar approach and aesthetic to the early days of Six Organs of Admittance except instead of dealing in Indo-American mythologising they conjure up a unique fairy tale dream world of misty forests, ice palaces, muddy gypsy trails and dank dungeons that's heavily indebted to European folklore, such as the Romanian vampire tale bizarrely and gruesomely adapted in the lush comic Solange created for the album. This band will really take you places if you let them and I think their capacity for wordless storytelling, painting such rich pictures in the mind, is probably their most remarkable gift. On to the practicalities then and Blackest Rainbow have done the band's insistence on beautiful presentation proud with said comic included in both the double CD version and the triple vinyl WITH double CD version (the CD features a couple of tracks not on the vinyl), the latter also packaged up in a pro-printed sleeve with insert. Each version is limited to 500 which I think makes this NSB's biggest ever release but that certainly doesn't mean it'll be around forever as the vinyl's already gone at source.. And I don't think you'd want to miss out on this one.

Sound clips for Shadow Kingdom, by Natural Snow Buildings

Sunbone Play

The Fall of Shadow Kingdom Play

Ghthonian Odyssey Play

Gorgon Play

From Their Body At Will Play

The Fear They May Come Back Play

Gauled Ones And Birth Ruge Play

The Desolated Play

Salty Tongue Play

The Vein of Invisibility Play

Go Away Disappear Play

Porridge Stick Into The Fire And Dust Into The Direction of The Sun Play

A Burial At Sea Play

Os Deus Cannibais Play

The Faceless Play

The Crystal Bird Play

What the label says about Shadow Kingdom, by Natural Snow Buildings:

New album from the French duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, aka Natural Snow Buildings. Shadow Kingdom continues their journey through some of the finest experimental folk laced with beautiful drones, all recordings are new. This follows their highly sought after releases on Students of Decay and Digitalis, as well as the their ultra limited private press releases that they've self released. The duo have amassed a cult following from what was until last year almost entirely in response to internet blogs and downloading as before then there were no largely available releases. This perhaps their follow up to the now classic 'The Dance Of the Moon and Sun', its a epic as that previous double disc effort and featuring their trademark beautiful folk wanderings as well as their extremely dark sides delving into intense ambient drone, which somehow retains an air of sheer beauty. This is an almost perfecting executed album surpassing the 2 hour mark by a hefty chunk, but at no point does the sheer beauty of this music diminish. Limited to approx 500.

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