Thursday, April 1, 2010

Natural Snow Buildings - The Centauri Agent


This was brought to my attention via Marilyn Roxie, featured previously over at J's Heaven. It is available as a free download, from her new Netlabel, Vulpiano Records.
I must say, this is pretty high quality stuff for a free download. A Double LP, full of sprawling extraterrestrial sonorities, sci-fi yet earthy simultaneously. It makes me think of that The Centauri Agent, from beyond space and time, is stranded on this third rock from the sun, and is staring up at the night sky, missing his friends and family. It is haunting and mournful, yet peaceful and poignant as well.
NSB seem to really excel at creating mood and soundscapes. All of the ingredients are well placed; an acoustic guitar strumming out of the ether, a shaker, an oscillattor, marching in off the wings to make the static drones interesting, textured, emotional. Their albums are wonderful for daydreaming, long walks, reading, napping. Truly 'incidental listening,' when yr ears do wander back over, there is always something interesting to pick out. Not exactly something to hum along to, not necessarily a great make-out record, their records are, however, superb introspection vehicles, meditative, trance-inducing. I've had a few transcendent experiences, as i've explored their back catalog over the last year.
'The Centauri Agent' is a great place to dive into their (admittedly rather vast) canon, and check out one of the best bands work in the ritualistic drone field. Thanks to Marilyn, for turning me on to this band in the first place, and for putting this record together. It is inspiring to me, that people are putting such time and care into good art, without capitalist concerns.
Marilyn has given a more thorough track by track breakdown, over at her A Future in Noise blog, as well as a link to FLAC files, for you Audiophiles.

Natural Snow Buildings - The Centauri Agent

1 comment:

  1. Cheers for posting about this here, and great sentiments too - "superb introspection vehicles, meditative, trance-inducing", I definitely agree with this! Glad you enjoyed it, I'm still thrilled they went with me and Vulpiano for this release in the first place. :)

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