Natural Snow Buildings is my favorite group ever

There are bands you enjoy, and then there are bands that become part of your bloodstream. For me, Natural Snow Buildings belongs to that sacred second category. It is the kind of music that reshapes sound into entire worlds that grow like ivy around the ruins of the self.

Solange Gularte and Mehdi Ameziane are the quiet magicians behind this miracle. They are two reclusive souls from France who seem to communicate through reverberations more than words. Their music exists somewhere between drone, psychedelic folk, and ambient, but even those labels feel too small and human. What they do is closer to alchemy.

Each of their 26 albums feels like a relic from another civilization. Daughter of Darkness is arguably their most ambitious creation. It’s a six-hour meditation in which folk melodies bloom and wither beneath oceans of distortion. Listening to it is like wandering into fog until you forget your own name. Instead of progressing, the music suspends time—there’s nothing forcing you to follow, yet you are hypnotized by its enchanting loops and wall of sound.

Then there’s Shadow Kingdom, where delicate acoustic patterns drift like lanterns across a black lake. There’s also The Winter Ray, which features radio broadcast recordings that seem to search for life in the vastness of the cold outer space. Night Country feels like an incantation carved into the bones of the night, wrapped in a frightening and luminous atmosphere. And how could I not mention my favorite record of all time, Laurie Bird? I could speak at length about their entire discography for hours, which I plan to do gradually in this blog. Though each album has its own vibe, an overall lo-fi hiss and spectral layering converges in their music, making even the simplest chords feel ancient, as if recorded by spirits trying to remember the shape of a song.

I connect so deeply with their music that I strongly believe that, somehow, it embodies the sound of creation itself—not in a biblical sense, but in the quiet miracle of things becoming. A drone becomes a melody, a melody becomes a landscape, and a landscape becomes a memory. You can hear this through Solange’s airy vocals, whose scarce appearance rivals that of a Dark Souls bonfire in the wilderness, and in Mehdi’s looping guitars that drift upward like incense. Rather than swelling into the big crescendos you find in some post-rock outfits—which I also love!—, these melodies hang in the air, haunting the corners of your room long after the track ends.

Loving Natural Snow Buildings means loving patience. Their music demands surrender to time, slowness, and repetition. It’s not meant to be skimmed; it’s meant to be dwelled in. You don’t listen to it to be entertained, but to have an experience—a ritualistic one—, as pretentious as that might sound. If you listen long enough to the wind or the hum of an electric wire, you might hear the same eternal vibration that pulses through their songs.

In an age of playlists and algorithms, where the vast majority of media is designed to be skipped or quickly consumed, Natural Snow Buildings stands defiantly apart. They don’t chase listeners; they wait for the patient seekers and dreamers who still believe that art can be infinite. In fact, their music doesn’t seem intended for people at all. It’s better suited as the soundtrack to moss growing on stone, twilight falling on abandoned chapels, and snow melting on an old windowpane.

Their anonymity only deepens the mystery. They rarely perform or speak. They release albums quietly, as if leaving offerings on a doorstep. Perhaps that’s what makes them so powerful. They let the music speak for itself, unburdened by ego or fame. However, the flip side is uncertainty. After 2016’s six-hour colossus, Aldebaran, fans don’t know if another record will ever materialize.

When I listen to Natural Snow Buildings, I remember what it feels like to be small. Small in the face of beauty and in the presence of something vaster than thought. Their sound reminds me that existence is both fleeting and endless, and that we are all just vibrations in an infinite field of sound.

It probably goes without saying: Natural Snow Buildings vehemently holds the title of my favorite group in existence. I’m well aware of my ignorance, however, and the fact that I haven’t listened to even 1% of the music ever released. Still, I doubt I’ll ever find another band whose music makes me feel as if it’s a secret shared by the universe itself. Every time I listen to the architects of infinity building the ever-growing snow cathedral in the eternal night, I remember, “There is still magic left in this world.”