the critique of pure reason presents:

drag city recording artist:

six organs of admittance
9:30 pm
all ages
suggested donation tbd

In 1998 Ben Chasny self-released an LP of his “acoustic based project[ions]” under the name Six Organs of Admittance. The resulting five-song LP is a masterpiece of diverse elements using acoustic and electric guitars, a detuned violin, organ, electronics, and koto. The material covers a lot of ground: there’s an acid folk duet, an epic, three-part space suite, and two short concrete-like pieces that entice hidden memories of having bees in your mouth.

In 1999, Chasny released “Dust & Chimes,” an album of heavy, acoustic guitar and mumbled vocalizations that merged with out-there jamming; in 2002 Holy Mountain released “Dark Noontide”—the third full-length release from Six Organs of Admittance. While listeners were pleasantly surprised by Chasny’s out-of-nowhere acid-folk genius on earlier releases, “Dark Noontide” came in a notch or two higher, with another spectacular merging of dreamy, hypnotic, finger-picked melodies and psychedelia concrete, not to mention some very fine fuzz guitar.

While Six Organs of Admittance have been pigeonholed by some as a chance-operated celestial jam unit, the group has always been about songs, and nowhere is this more apparent than on their fourth full length album, “Compathia,” an eight-song cycle that mixes the strengths of Chasny’s acoustic and electric guitar with his knack for placing this on top of disparate and subtle atmospheric backgrounds. The live favorite “Somewhere Between” has been redone and finalized in a fantastic new version featuring sitar by Comets on Fire’s Ethan Miller. The delicate acoustic strum of the album is challenged at the end of the record on the epic “Only the Sun Knows,” which features some extremely heavy “electric destruction guitar” from Miller before Chasny takes back control and lands the album on solid ground.

In addition to the continuing the Six Organs of Admittance discography Chasny has also played in Badgerlore with Rob Fisk [ex-Deerhoof] and has opened the world of heavy, distorted psychedelic rock to folkies as a member of Comets on Fire. Collaborations galore and many new recordings are on the horizon.

Six Organs Of Admittance has recently joined arms with Drag City, but this tour is supported by Holy Mountain.

Production: Stacie Slotnick/the critique of pure reason
stacie (at) thecritique (dot) org
http://www.thecritique.org