The desire to assume a symbolic role to further one’s art has been around forever. The novelist may mask their own traits with a new name, and the painter may create fictitious characters with expressions revealing their deepest fears. This is not an act of cowardice, rather the distancing from the exposed self is done to provide a base for others to project themselves onto. It’s one thing to write themes and paint colours that audiences may relate to, but another to have a tangible place which one can continue to explore from. While literature, painting, and especially film (cue the 15-year-olds saying “literally me” when watching American Psycho) have character-driven vessels that are easy to visualize, the medium of music runs into a unique problem. The autobiographical nature of music links it so tightly to the creator that it makes  fictional narratives hard to come by. This is perhaps most evident in the case of folk, which for the majority of modern music history, has acted as the most explicit method for revealing personal truths through language. In the case of instrumental genres which abstract their narratives through the omission of verse, they still operate from a framework of the artist as themselves. Take Ornette Coleman’s 1959 album The Shape of Jazz to Come, which used his feelings of isolation within jazz to produce an album free from the standard chordal structure of bebop. Jazz wasn’t pushed forward just because of someone tinkering with the genre but also Ornette trying to make a deeply personal statement in doing so. Despite there being no instantly obvious narrative, the context and motivations of the music do the talking. 

Music seems to have no issues diving into abstraction, but the ability to move into territory outside of the self is truly rare. One album that comes close while remaining lyrically focused is SpaceGhostPurrp’s Blackland Radio 666: Pt. 2, wherein the singer assumes a devil-like character entangled in the record’s dark and lethargic atmosphere. This album, however, does not use the devil as a separate entity, it is still only an imagined version of SpaceGhostPurrp through the playing of a character. The lack of symbolic vessels in music did eventually find resolve, and much earlier than most would expect. Most surprising of all is the fact that this was only accomplished through compromise, and by weaving together abstraction and the symbolic character.

In 1959, American folk musician John Fahey released his debut album titled Blind Joe Death/John Fahey, which names both the A and B sides after people. The caveat to this titling is that Blind Joe Death is completely fictitious and was created by Fahey to converse musically with himself on the B side. Do not let the description of folk deceive you, as this release is entirely guitar, and serves as the unambiguous origin of the American primitivism genre. This style adopts standard blues structure and fingerpicking techniques, while relying on its raw atmosphere and lack of vocals to distance itself from the genres emerging in the mainstream such as rock and R&B. The character of Blind Joe Death is inspired by Delta and Piedmont blues artists of the ‘20s and ’30s, confidently playing the style in a distinctive and minimal way. This adaptation of blues morphs into a progressive one when the modern member, John Fahey, takes the seat for the B side and opens with “The Transcendental Waterfall,” a 10-minute-long behemoth of idiosyncratic strumming and song structure. On this album, John Fahey is taking the former composition of blues (using Blind Joe Death as a symbolic vessel), only to obscure it as himself into an avant-garde retelling of “primitive” American music. 

Let’s jump to 2008, with nearly 40 years of musical development having pushed many genres to their limits, including the folk that John Fahey went on to revolutionize. One French band in particular—Natural Snow Buildings—had been effortlessly combining drone music with folk since their formation in the late ‘90s. Drone is often thought of as an offshoot of electronic music, using looping technology to create the sustained tones the genre is known for. The genre doesn’t need to lend itself to the unnatural, as contemporary interpretations of folk music have no problem utilizing the same sustained tone structure without the need for computer software. Natural Snow Buildings released Laurie Bird in 2008 after recording it in two home sessions the year prior. As a band known for having extremely long songs to accompany their drone elements, this release takes those ideas and maximizes them. The opening track, “Song for Laurie Bird,” is a 46-minute epic that culminates all of the band’s aesthetic wishes within the drone genre. As the longest track they had created at the time, it was able to give itself the time and space to explore the textures one can discover within a folk base. The instrumentation used is malleable and shaped into long-winded loops that fold over each other. As one phrase begins to switch tone or change chord, a new one starts simultaneously in the background which sneaks in and eventually swells to the front of the piece. This process is repeated until a final decrescendo marks the last minute of the song. I especially love the music around the 36-minute mark where feedback is used, acting as a callback to the natural process of raw folk recording in the past. Guitar strumming and tapping can be heard (a feature present earlier in the song)—only this time, they are retold in the scope of contemporary folk experimentation. 

What makes this album especially unique within Natural Snow Buildings’ discography is the fact that its concept is linked to a character. Laurie Bird was an actress from the ‘70s who was featured in only three movies before her tragic passing at the age of 25. Despite having had such a short-lived career, she left a great impression on everyone she worked with, often being cited for her mysterious but unmistakable presence both onscreen and in person. The second song, titled “Cockmotherfighting” (named after her second film Cockfighter), leans further into the folk idioms present on the opener. The looping phrases that fade in and out are recalled, but with fewer elements of drone as percussion and vocal chants take precedence. The vocals used in this track are merely another instrument in the drowning layers that reciprocate. No lyrics are spoken the entire album, which is a first for the band despite their affinity for instrumental works. Every previous record had at least one track with spoken verse, but here there is nothing, almost akin to a vow of silence regarding the subject matter. The final track, “Orisha’s Laments,” continues the structure of the previous two, but uses a much more haunting palette that slowly builds into a cathartic, noisy drone which envelops all of the surrounding sounds. This song is the final mourning after having spent the previous hour celebrating the life and works of Laurie Bird. 

Laurie Bird shows Natural Snow Buildings at their most vulnerable. The band chooses to withhold their words and instead use the expansive nature of the sound that they had slowly been alluding to and working towards since they formed. They pushed this unique corner of folk music to its limits, similarly to John Fahey’s expansion of blues guitar 40 years prior. Most fascinating of all is the way they utilized the tribute structure. Laurie Bird acts as a symbolic representation of the band’s wishes to leave an impact. Little is known about the members of the band, and since their potentially permanent hiatus in 2016, they have continuously grown in popularity with a dedicated cult following. Laurie Bird’s art spoke deeply to the band in the same way their work speaks to many in the present, continuing a cycle of admiring the mysterious. This album represented a turning point in their careers, as they would perform grander and more expansive instrumental drone-folk pieces from that point onward, solidifying the two genres’ intersection as more than just interesting experimentation. 

While John Fahey first implemented the symbolic vessel by creating a character to break free from, Natural Snow Buildings used an individual they admired to escape from themselves. Laurie Bird is the band allowing the actress to pass the torch to the band’s new selves. Sometimes, the most beautiful introspection is done through the lens of another, and sometimes musical metamorphosis is the only way to reach that beauty.