Luminous Night
What’s maybe most impressive and curious is how Ben Chasny finds time to record such intricate and exquisite music while also working with Comets On Fire, Badgerlore, Current 93, Magik Markers, August Born, Basalt Fingers and many others. One wonders if he could have discovered how to open a wormhole in the space-time continuum before learning to play the strings of time’s fabric like an instrument. “Bar-Nasha” sets the scene comfortably with open-tuned guitar drones, tabla drums, buzzing sitars and Chasny matching the monotones with lysergic inflections that barely flirt with melody. “Anesthesia” gets trippier, with woodwinds and undulating waves of guitar feedback and Chasny singing upfront until ghosts of shoegaze past come in, releasing the song from his grip. ”The Ballad Of Charley Harper” may or may not be about the American Modernist that this song took its name from – but that’s neither here nor there. What’s most important about this gorgeous gem is that it\'s so beautifully psychedelic from beginning to end.
The 11th opus of Six Organs of Admittance explores the moodier corners of Ben Chasny's expanding universe, bringing in string sorcerer Eyvind Kang, sound producer Randall Dunn and other similarly-minded music alchemists. Buried vocals? No, but a whole track got buried and dug up again. And we dig it, and you'll dig it too.
Latest from the prolific and influential avant-folk artist is something of a summary record, demonstrating most of the range he's shown over the years.
Following his retrospective RTZ compilation, Ben Chasny continued his 2009 work with Luminous Night, yet another in the string of compelling, moving releases under the Six Organs of Admittance name.
Six Organs of Admittance (the solo project of Seattle-based Ben Chasny) gallop to the rescue with the least summery offering this side of Santa Claus, although it’s debatable whether that famed benchmark for jolliness would warm to these cuts which ooze with pitch black permafrost and spookiness.