Six Organs Of Admittance

Inspired by the East-meets-West solo guitar musings of <a href="spotify:artist:4js8BDiQwnHLlDmT1shPH7">John Fahey</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1bB0hKohfWkczaTMQLQdlR">Robbie Basho</a>, Northern California guitarist <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Ben Chasny</a> has built a prolific and diverse body of work under the name Six Organs of Admittance. An experimental amalgam of new folk, drone music, percussion, chimes, and strange textures, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> delivered an outpouring of eclectic releases in the early 2000s for various small labels before finding a longstanding home on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Drag+City%22">Drag City</a>, where he issued highlights like 2006's Sun Awakens and 2012's Ascent. He later developed a card-based creative system called a Hexadic for making music and released several related albums before resuming his primary project with new work like 2021's The Veiled Sea and the 2024 <a href="spotify:artist:5Mq3CTRRgLcPkMnUue75a3">Shackleton</a> collaboration Jinxed by Being.

After playing guitar for the free rock project Plague Lounge in the late '90s, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> formed Six Organs of Admittance in 1998 and the project's self-titled, self-released debut appeared later that year, followed by various compilation tracks and obscurities. In 2000, Six Organs issued the Manifestation EP on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Ba+Da+Bing%21%22">Ba Da Bing!</a> label, a one-sided, clear, vinyl-only effort consisting of one extended piece (it was reissued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Strange+Attractors%22">Strange Attractors</a> on CD in 2004 with extra music), and featuring female vocals and varied percussion accompanying the centerpiece of <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a>'s guitar. Also in 2000, Dust and Chimes was released, first in a limited edition by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Pavilion%22">Pavilion</a>, and then in an expanded edition by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Holy+Mountain%22">Holy Mountain</a>. The second full-length from Six Organs, it featured raga-like guitar work surrounded by bells, chimes (as the name implies), drones, and <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a>'s multi-tracked, chant-style vocals.

In 2003, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> began an association with <a href="spotify:artist:369NbOi6NH1ThhB3gxFwqh">Comets on Fire</a>, which led to him becoming a full-time touring and recording member of the band. He also released Compathia for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Holy+Mountain%22">Holy Mountain</a> and two titles for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Time-Lag%22">Time-Lag</a>, a CD reissue of 1999's limited-edition Nightly Trembling and the landmark For Octavio Paz. After recording and touring extensively with <a href="spotify:artist:369NbOi6NH1ThhB3gxFwqh">Comets on Fire</a> in 2004, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> returned to the studio and issued the moving and beautiful School of the Flower on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Drag+City%22">Drag City</a> in January of 2005. Sun Awakens and Shelter from the Ash arrived in 2006 and 2007. After touring and a long break in 2008, Six Organs began what would become a prolific 2009. First was the release of the sonically expansive -- and very electric -- Luminous Night, followed by the double-disc retrospective RTZ, both of which appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Drag+City%22">Drag City</a>.

In addition, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> and friends provided a vinyl-only soundtrack for Joseph Mattson's novel Empty the Sun, from <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Barnacle%22">Barnacle</a> in a limited edition that also included the book. <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> and guitarist Andrew Mitchell recorded -- as Six Organs -- an all-acoustic, limited-release CD-R entitled Live at the Cat's Cradle, recorded by Cory Rayborn in October. <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> spent 2010 immersing himself in the writings of French critic Gaston Bachelard and American theology professor Catherine Keller. They proved a profound influence on the composing, arranging, and recording of the next (primarily acoustic) Six Organs album, Asleep on the Floodplain, issued in the early spring of 2011 on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Drag+City%22">Drag City</a>. The band returned in the summer of 2012 with the decidedly more rocking Ascent.

<a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> spent the next couple of years touring and developing a card-based music-making system he calls Hexadic. Originally motivated by the desire to break guitarists out of bad habits as they met unfamiliar tonal relationships -- each card relates to a note on the neck -- he also adapted it for other instruments. Six Organs of Admittance issued a pair of albums named for the system in 2015. Returning to a more straightforward folk-based approach, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> followed up the Hexadic albums with Burning the Threshold in February 2017. A third Hexadic album -- this time curated by <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> but not containing any of his music -- was released in 2018, before he resumed Six Organs duties with 2020's mesmerizing Companion Rises LP. The following year <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> released his 20th Six Organs album The Veiled Sea, which explored abstract prog territory more than any of the project's previous efforts had, going so far as to include a <a href="spotify:artist:4yBBNmdvVaoPEnr2lt14q7">Faust</a> cover. In 2024, <a href="spotify:artist:1ijergbml3cMBhFmClM0gg">Chasny</a> released two albums under the Six Organs banner, the fully solo Time Is Glass, which consisted of haunted, unsettled rural folk sounds, and Jinxed by Being, a more psychedelic and more electronically geared set made in collaboration with <a href="spotify:artist:5Mq3CTRRgLcPkMnUue75a3">Shackleton</a>. ~ Jason Nickey & Thom Jurek, Rovi