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9/07/2019

Natural Snow Buildings – Aldebaran (2016)




  • Experimental folk 
  • Free folk 
  • Ambient 
  • Drone folk 
  • New Weird France 
  • Avant-folk 
  • Epic 
  • Post-folk 
  • Minimalism 
  • Psych-folk 
  • Ambient folk 
  • Improvised music 
  • Drone

Comment: I can remember for my first hearing about Aldebaran was related to a Soviet movie, The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981) being accompanied by a great electronic musical background of Aleksandr Zatsepin (which is now sought by many music lovers worldwide). Aldebaran is one of the most luminous stars in the Universe and it is something which inspired the enigmatic French duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte (being active as NSB since the end of the 90s) to create this 25-track magnum opus. Musically it is thoroughly hypnotic without any exceptions full of droning, intensified guitar and cello chords and lofty feedback-trodden reverberations in the course of almost six hours. A smouldering symphony as an output for something colossal and beautiful. Beyond all the sonorous sounds and faint effects (at times one hears a bagpipe, a melodica, a flute, electro-acoustic clanging, vowels and spoken words) one could discern the structure of songs used to rely on minimal ground through smooth shifts thereby providing a strong wondrous impact on a listener's perception and consciousness. In some sense, it is like a folk/drone version of vaporwave music due to strongly retrodelic, past anchored timbres at first sight yet nevertheless all the result seems to go ahead of our time, go ahead of us like very distant stellar objects do shine to us like being mixed up of reality and mysticism. The whole (sound) resonates physically and seemingly consciously through air. It is called cosmic om, isn't? The album inserts healing awe and purgative wonder to get distracted from surrounding crap and start feeling oneself again to be an integrated part of this tremendous solemn village. In some sense, unfortunately, the release is a bittersweet elegy to our malignant existence on Earth (the issue is finished off with an emblematically entitled track, The Drowned Church). The magnificent issue is a part of the discography of Vulpiano. Simply irresistible magical glimpse.