I’ve been meaning to write a little something about this album for what seems like forever now. Searchlight Needles is the latest full-length from Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities, a group founded by Jasmine Dreame Wagner and based in both Missoula, MT and Brooklyn, NY. Searchlight Needles is a fairly quiet and peaceful album that combines folksy guitars, slight electronics, keys, percussion, field recordings, and more into something that is (at times) as haunting and menacing as it is sparsely beautiful. Floating amidst all the noise (however) are Wagner’s poetic vocals. If I had to generalize, I’d loosely call this a combination of psychedelic folk and dark ambient soundscapes. It’s a dreamy affair that sounds like sitting in a dense pine forest in the middle of the night with the light of the moon reflecting on the snow, the howling of wolves in the distance, and the cold night air chilling to the bone. In addition, Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities’ albums are self-recorded and (in true DIY fashion) completely handmade. Pretty cool indeed.
MP3:
Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities - Sun
Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities - Little Ice Age
very nice. thanks for this fantastic folk recommendation!
As a student of history, I feel obliged to respond to “Cabinet of Natural Curiosities”. Wherever they got that from, it is a sadly weak translation of “wunderkammer” (rough translation, wonder cabinet) OR “kunstkammer”, which all mean in common English, Curiosity Cabinet. These cabinets contained much beyond simple natural curiosities, but anything that captivated the human imagination. Take, for example, the hydra or the basilisk. both prove that even once the understanding was reached that both creatures were fictions, there was still a very strong desire to collect information (particularly quote unqote real creatures) but also artistic representations of the animals.
sorry for the huge response, but this is what you get with someone who has a degree in early modern European history.
That is one of the most random comments ever. I learned something though. Thanks.