KTRU Pick of the Week: The Snowbringer Cult

By Rose Cahalan     2/19/09 6:00pm

The cover art of The Snowbringer Cult is a gorgeous pen-and-ink drawing of a giant hand emerging from the earth. Cupped in its palm is a tiny human figure who wears a mystical amulet and thrusts one arm, with a tribal drum clutched in his grasp, towards the sky. He seems to be trembling but staring resolutely into a heavy gust of wind. It calls to mind The Indian in the Cupboard, the children's book about a boy who has a pocket-sized Native American friend. The drawing is childlike and whimsical, with the miniature man grasping the huge index finger with a fuzzy mittened hand, yet it also has epic aspirations.The artwork accurately reflects the music it holds: ambient, innocent soundscapes that evolve into dense and otherworldly trances. The resulting sound falls somewhere between post-rock and psychedelic folk. If you like both the gentleness of Iron & Wine and the vaguely ethnic cacophony of Animal Collective, The Snowbringer Cult might be for you. Alternately, its subdued and meandering melodies would make an excellent soundtrack for anyone walking through a quiet snowy field. Too bad we live in Houston. I recommend at least snuggling up in a blanket with a cup of tea - preferably chai, to match the album's pseudo-Eastern vibe.

The self-titled album is a collaborative work by French musicians Solange Gularte and Mehdi Ameziane, who have put out a slew of EPs prior to this lengthy two-disc release. However, since each of their previous albums was produced in extremely limited releases of 30 to 50 copies total, they have remained almost completely unknown. Because Gularte crafts each cover herself by hand, this release of 1,000 copies - on the experimental Ohio label Students of Decay - must have been truly painstaking. The duo has slowly been gaining a following online, where most of the tracks from the album are available for free in digital format.

The double-disc set is organized oddly: The first disc is split between Gularte and Ameziane, who call themselves Isengrind and Twinsistermoon respectively, with each composing and performing half of the songs solo. The duo comes together on the second disc as The Snowbringer Cult. Why they chose to format the album this way, rather than as three separate releases, is unclear, and though their styles are fairly similar, the astounding length makes it feel like three full albums.

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Gularte's solo portion is decidedly more animated and multi-instrumental than Ameziane's. The choral vocals and droning strings of the first track, "From Icy Lands," swell into shimmering sitar, scattered light percussion and ghostlike moans in the next song, building up to "Cat's Cradles," which is remarkably coherent for only using some rustling sounds and a twanging guitar. Overall, though, it's clear that time does not operate in a linear fashion for Gularte: everything just sort of floats around in an aimless fashion that may be frustrating for anyone not using psychedelic drugs. It's best to listen to this passively, as gentle background music.

If Gularte's songs lull the listener to sleep, Ameziane's are a pleasant dream. Often, as in "The Spears of the Wolf," the sound seems to be coming from underwater - a muffled, distant effect that is lovely at first and annoying after a while. I was hopeful that the final third of the album would synthesize the best qualities of each, but instead it was a haphazard mix of plodding dirges and percussive trances. Or maybe I was just bored by that point. The Snowbringer Cult is a beautifully crafted soundscape, but don't expect it to be consistently engaging.

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