natural snow buildings: daughter of darkness

Ba Da Bing’s latest reissue of Natural Snow Buildings’ obscure releases draws from their five-cassette epic Daughter of Darkness. The cassette version was limited to 150 copies, and a mind-blowing release like this deserves more widespread availability. Daughter of Darkness came out in early 2009 and delves deep into Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte’s music at its most grandiose. Most tracks breeze past the ten-minute mark, and some don’t slow down as they pass 20 minutes. Along the way, Natural Snow Buildings’ orchestrated soundscapes fully engulf the listener, with their droning guitars, tribal percussion, ritualistic singing and colliding woodwinds. Sit down for a full listen to this release, and one might find one’s self noticeably older when finished, albeit damned wiser. Limited to 500 numbered copies, this six-disc CD box is a sister to the 300-copy 8xLP version, only available through mail order. The CD version also contains two bonus tracks from Daughter of Darkness V, a separate cassette that was released at the same time as the original set. When these are gone, they’re gone. The discs are housed in a hand-painted box that sports one of a variety of images befitting the sonic spectacle within. No two are exactly alike.