A Difficult 2015—Reissues and Archival Releases

2015 was such a lousy year for music that I found most of my fun in the reissues pile. Each one of these was an exciting discovery.

 

Alice Coltrane—Universal Consciousness (Superior Viaduct)
This is a fantastic reissue of Coltrane’s 1971 album for Impulse!—one which Fact magazine declared the third best album of the 1970s. The music shimmers and prickles you, surging in ways that I can’t comprehend—how do you play like that? The spiritual journey that Coltrane describes in the liner notes isn’t something I can understand either, but I’m certainly glad it sparked the creation of this music.

Six Organs of Admittance—Dust and Chimes (Holy Mountain)
Ben Chasny is in full folk/psych acoustic splatter mode on this set originally released in 2000. A little frantic and spindly to really mellow you out, it’s mind-expanding stuff nevertheless.

 

Besombes/Rizet—Pôle (Gonzaï Records)
This French duo operated in the same synth/freakout realms as Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and especially Heldon. It doesn`t sound like they had the latest gear (in an era when being two or three years behind could mean a lot), but they made the most of it. The original 1975 LP was a double. This reissue is a single disc, but you get the whole set of tracks with the download card.

 Soft Machine—Switzerland 1974 (Cuneiform)
Allan Holdsworth joining Soft Machine made for a heavy, volatile mix. Ace Soft Machine archivists Cuneiform Records have outdone themselves with this CD/DVD combo.

Sensations Fix—Music is Painting in the Air (1974-1977) (RVNG)
Italo/American outfit Sensations Fix were led by Franco Falsini, who returns to his cache of tapes recorded in the mid-seventies for this collection of lost tracks and remixes. The songs are driven by Falsini’s cosmic guitar playing and plentiful Minimoog. It’s whacked-out and hapless enough to have considerable obscurist allure.

A Difficult 2012—Part Two

Part Two of Five...

Witch Mountain—Cauldron of the Wild (Profound Lore)

2012 was a good year for female vocalists, and none made a stronger impression than Witch Mountain’s Uta Plotkin. What a voice! And how refreshing it was to hear someone sing with such operatic clarity overtop some grungy blues-doom. Singers like Plotkin usually get snapped up by power metal bands, but her voice offers much more than bombast. When she takes it down on “Never Know” there some old-soul Janis Joplin vibes at work too. Cauldron of the Wild was an original brew; a clutch of affecting songs without immediate peer or precedent. Maybe that’s a rash statement—of course there’s decades of moody heavy rock that came before this—but there’s not a single moment on this album that made me go, “Oh, they’re one of those bands.” There’s a loud, proud freak flag flying from the summit of Witch Mountain.

Evoken—Atra Mors (Profound Lore)

Evoken’s fifth album turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Sorry, I mean , it turned out to precipitate a drastic plunge into gloom and despair. But the ultra-doom of Atra Mors does let a bit of light in—there’s a sliver of sunlight leaking into this dungeon. The quintet works with elements of the classic Peaceville sound, evoking Birmingham or damp Yorkshire rather than their New Jersey home. Clean guitars and synths drape the crawling doom riffs, and spoken-word passages provide emotional connection amidst the death growls. Every element enhances the drama and grandeur on the most majestic out-and-out heavy metal album I heard all year.

Six Organs of Admittance—Ascent (Drag City)

Ben Chasny teamed up with his Comets On Fire bandmates for Ascent, and the results are naturally more exuberant while still maintaining the SOoA spirit. There are still some crackling, electric songs that crank up the amps and dial down the acoustic introspection. “Waswasa” in particular is an ecstatic slice of rock ‘n’ roll, with the kind of riff you can jam on all day. The psych gets a little intense on “One Thousand Birds” and “Even If You Knew” as well. These songs are loose and open ended, with wild guitar solos out the wazoo—the sound of a band going for that “hot take.” Amidst all this is “Your Ghost,” just guitar and voice on a song as lovely as you’ll ever hear.

Goat—World Music (Rocket Recordings)

Where did these people come from and what are they on? The sleeve is patterned like a tribal blanket, offering no clues to the devilry/revelry within, save for the olde English “GOAT” typeface, which hinted that there was a bit of evil going on. Goat originated in Sweden, apparently, where someone thought it’d be a good idea to get a band together to make some kind of psychedelic afrobeat music. That must have been a strange, compelling Musicians Wanted ad. They sound out of time, beyond any instantly grasped genre. Yet they were instantly liked by anyone who heard them, and became a real breakout act for Rocket Recordings.

Mares of Thrace—The Pilgrimage (Sonic Unyon)

This spindly, twitching Brundlefly of a record improved on their promising debut in every aspect. Reviewed in full here.

A Difficult 2011, 20 to 16

I've already posted full reviews of each of these albums, so the blurbs are relatively short for this installment.

20. Abriosis—Tattered and Bound

Abriosis are the only other Canadian band to make this list. I had to give them a placing based on their ripping live set and this world-class album. Tattered and Bound is a masterclass in discordant, technical death metal. Old-school, raw metal of death got most of the press in 2011, but I’m always in the market for a few key tech-death albums every year. Abriosis cut through with clarity and precision. Attention, Willowtip!

19. Earth—Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (Southern Lord)

For all their sprawl, the last few Earth albums were tightly wound. There was great discipline in their repetition and tempos. It was like watching a tightrope walker; balance and symmetry in action. On Angels of Darkness... they let go of all that and did not fall. The music often just hovers there as Dylan Carlson directs the band with a light touch on the guitar. Get ready for Angels of Darkness II very soon.

18. Led Bib—Bring Your Own (Cuneiform)

I love Led Bib’s brand of raucous, hard-hitting action jazz. It’s exciting to hear saxophones duking it out for supremacy as the rhythm section races away like Prost and Senna side by side, heading into turn one. The dynamics and live power of five crack musicians playing together delivers the kind of jolt that I don’t often get from rock records. I haven’t sampled much of Cuneiform’s jazz roster, but I’m glad I took a chance on Led Bib, first with 2009’s Sensible Shoes and now with this fantastic follow-up.

17. Nicklas Barker—El Ultimo Fin De Semana

The soundtrack album lives on. Nicklas Barker’s main band is Anekdoten, and he brings that band’s melancholy (and Mellotron) to this collection of instrumentals written for a Spanish thriller. Some rock soundtrack albums work well as rock albums, full stop, such as Pink Floyd’s More Soundtrack (appreciated here) or Air’s The Virgin Suicides. Those albums incorporated songs amidst the musical interludes, whereas this one doesn’t. Still, its eerie snippets of music form a nicely sustained mood piece. The opening theme of “Celestial Ghost” will get under your skin immediately.

16. Six Organs of Admittance—Asleep on the Floodplain (Drag City)

Ben Chasny turned in quite an intimate record this time around. Asleep on the Floodplain offers a number of solo guitar performances as well as forlorn ballads and a big, buzzing hypnotic thing (“S/Word and Leviathan”) that's either the product of inspired improvisation or a happy accident in the studio...maybe a bit of both. Chasny's understated virtuosity has never been more evident. I'll always be impressed by his ability to create such vivid pictures with simple elements.

Six Organs of Admittance—Asleep on the Floodplain (Drag City)

It’s a credit to Ben Chasny’s abilities as a guitarist and songwriter that his work sounds so effortless. It has the flow and spontaneity of conversation, making the listener feel like a privileged eavesdropper. Listen to the exchange of phrases on the opening track “Above a Desert I've Never Seen”: tentative at first, then faster, as the discussion heats up, trills jabbing back and forth, then resolution and a calm parting of the ways. It’s surely the product of intense concentration on the part of the artist, but sounds easy as breathing.

Asleep on the Floodplain takes a more intimate, acoustic approach than recent Six Organs of Admittance albums such as Luminous Night or The Sun Awakens. Four of the tracks are solo guitar, with occasional harmonium overdubs. The combination works very well—the guitar paints a compelling line in the foreground; the harmonium provides the background element; that other dimension.

Sounds both placid and haunting dominate, like the low thrum that underpins “Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us” or the synth that curls like smoke around the memorable “Hold But Let Go.” “S/Word and Leviathan,” the longest track, establishes an uneasy atmosphere, vibrating like a dozen hammers pounding on power cables for several minutes. A chord progression emerges, then some vocals, before an electric guitar slashes through and obliterates all the chatter. “A New Name on an Old Cement Bridge” follows, a bluesy guitar piece to balance the mood after its predecessor’s cloudburst.

The album abounds in water imagery, which suits the flowing qualities of the music on Asleep on the Floodplain. These are small-seeming songs that resonate much larger, like the chain of ripples forming behind a skipping stone.

Six Organs of Admittance—RTZ (Drag City)

Ben Chasny’s folk/psych project rounds up some rare split and limited edition releases on this sprawling double CD/triple LP release. Recorded at home on a Tascam 424 four-track—the title refers to the unit's RTZ (“Return to Zero”) button—the five epic “segments” showcase the more mystical, murky side of SOoA. None of them are in a hurry to get anywhere; each explores a becalmed and forlorn sound-space while wandering into some weird nooks and crannies along the way. With just four tracks and a few guitars Chasny creates some impressive music. It's often sparse, as his recording methods have dictated, but it's never in any danger of becoming uninvolving. “Warm Earth, Which I’ve Been Told” embraces stasis, with a quavering organ drone supporting a variety of clanging string sounds, the whole thing bookended by a mournful guitar figure and chanting. Bleakest number here? On “You Can Always See The Sun,” Chasny’s intricate playing is offset by a looming drone of distortion. “Punish the Chasm With Wings” offers the most contrast. A low, prolonged hum threatens a cacophony, which arrives with an electric guitar spazzout overtop some frantic acoustic guitar and primitive drumming, which is in turn replaced by the same low hum. It's like scanning a radio dial exclusively occupied by weird underground radio stations, for whom Ummagumma and First Utterance are the foundation for all music. Despite originating between 1998 and 2003, the pieces on RTZ are remarkably cohesive, fitting together to form an audio mural of beautiful desolation, to be listened to with lights off and contemplated like an ultra-malevolent Wyndham Hill album. I don't know if Chasny chose these pieces wisely or simply had them as his only non-album tracks, but they work well together. Wallowing in ramshackle beauty and noble loneliness, RTZ is a unique and important entry in the Six Organs of Admittance saga.

Six Organs of Forbidden Woods

Wherein I round up reviews of recent shows. It’s been a busy summer for gigs, almost as relentless as the heat that pounded our pale Pacific Northwest hides for a couple weeks in July and August.

Six Organs of Admittance, with The Intelligence and Master Musicians of Bukkake, August 20 at The Biltmore
This was quite a different Six Organs of Admittance show to the one a few years ago at the Media Club, where Ben Chasny and band promoted The Sun Awakens with a demanding, aggressive set. He took a folkier approach for this show, playing acoustic guitar throughout, supported by another guitarist, an occasional synth player, and, for a few songs, a larger cast drawn from openers Master Musicians of Bukkake. Chasny’s modest demeanour contrasts with his monstrously dexterous guitar playing, taking the finger picking and open tunings from early '60s British folkies like Bert Jansch and launching them into the psychedelic fringes (just as his other band, Comets on Fire, does with garage rock). He must have played mostly new material because I didn’t recognise a lot of it. An atmosphere of quiet devastation prevailed, highlighted by a stirring version of “Strangled Road” from Shelter in the Ash. Not that the show was a downer by any means. Music appears to effortlessly emanate from Chasny's fingers, and it's a thrill just to be present while it happens.

Prior to Six Organs of Admittance, the two boys and two girls who make up The Intelligence delivered a nice surprise in the form of a peppy set of post-punk inspired pop. Think Joy Division, Buzzcocks, Gang of Four. Their punchy songs helped ground the gig to this earthly realm, positioned as they were before Six Organs and after a fascinating ritual performed by The Master Musicians of Bukkake. As my friend remarked after the Master Musicians' set, “I wouldn’t even know how to describe what that was.” To take my own stab at a description, MMoB resembled beekeeping monks playing Asian-tinged drone in dry-ice fog. Recommended if you like: Secret Chiefs 3, SUNN O))) and Popul Vuh.

Woods of Ypres, with Trollband and Torrential Pain, August 24 at the Cobalt
Ontario’s Woods of Ypres have put in some serious mileage this summer, with a Western Canadian tour that took them from Sault St. Marie out to Victoria and back. I had high hopes for their Vancouver debut, but harboured some nagging dread about what might happen to them in this cesspool surrounded by mountains. Please, Vancouver, I thought, don’t be too sketchy—just let them play a good show. After a fun if over-excited performance by local folk metallers Trollband, Woods of Ypres took the stage in front of a decent-sized crowd and started raging immediately—so intensely that bassist Shane Madden broke a string and had to battle through the bulk of the song. The rest of the band sounded great, and were set to dominate once they’d procured a replacement bass. “Your Ontario Town is a Burial Ground” was next, surprisingly early in the set for such a stadium-sized, encore-ready song.

Although most of the crowd was loving it, one or two dudes were clearly not, glaring at the band and throwing the occasional middle finger. Perhaps they’d come expecting to see some other band called Woods of Ypres. Maybe the Woods guys—unpretentious, regular guys—weren’t putting across a grim enough image for a black/doom metal band.

While I was taking in this scene, my wife took an odd turn and I followed her out of the club to get some fresh air and make sure she was OK. I hailed a cab for her, which stopped a little past the throng out on the sidewalk. As I got her bundled into the back seat, I heard a “smash! smash! smash!” behind me. My wife shut the door and the cab took off but quick. I turned around to see the Woods of Ypres van with its front windshield smashed in and two dudes—the same guys having a lousy time inside—rushing across Main Street towards the Skytrain. One of them turned back towards us and said, “That isn’t black metal!”

I reentered the club and watched the rest of Woods’ set in a completely bewildered, increasingly sad state of mind. Woods were incredible, but I couldn’t enjoy the show. I was just embarrassed for this city and sorry for the band, who wouldn’t even be able to drive to their next stop all because of some elitist asshats and their infantile, cretinous attitudes and actions.

Forbidden, with Gross Misconduct and Magnus Rising, August 26 at The Bourbon
I was never a Forbidden fan, but my friend Smash, whose taste in thrash I trust implicitly, gave me the opportunity to go. After the miserable vibe of the previous show, some good old thrash would be the perfect tonic.

Magnus Rising had plenty of groove and grunge, but their material is rather ill-defined at the moment. It sounds like they’re taking cues from Soundgarden and Kyuss without capturing either of those bands’ flair for variety and quirkiness.

Seasoned deathsters Gross Misconduct were solid as ever with their Death and Morbid Angel-tinged attack. They're comfortable enough on stage to banter aimably between songs while being deadly serious when in full flight. Wicked stuff.

Forbidden carried on in a similar vein, laying down some ferocious thrash and engaging the mid-size crowd with amusing remarks, including a tale of getting grilled as potential "undesirables" at the Canadian border only to find themselves driving through the most "undesirable" part of Vancouver on their way to the club. As vocalist Russ Anderson put it, "And they didn't want to let US into their country?"

New drummer Mark Hernandez was undoubtedly the star of the show—his crisp, hard-hitting attack was a marvel of precision and stamina—but the rest of the band acquitted themselves well, and if the new song "Adapt or Die" is indicative of the rest of their new material, Forbidden should pick up enough momentum to be playing to crowds of thrash-metal zealots for a long time to come.

Six Organs of Admittance, July 30, The Media Club
Openers The Christa Min didn’t smile, acknowledge the audience or appear to enjoy their own music. I don’t have any patience for that whole “I’d rather be napping” schtick. Musically speaking, the sextet’s songs are okay, if a little predictable once you grasp the formula most of them follow. Their last song did have some drama and power. I remember it from the last time I saw them at Mesa Luna, and I have the main riff stuck in my head right now.

I’m new to Six Organs of Admittance—thanks to that relentless kid at Outer Space Gamelan and Unrestrained! Adam for alerting me. I’ve been enjoying their new album The Sun Awakens (Drag City) for a few weeks now. Singer/guitarist Ben Chasny, who has connections to Comets on Fire and Current 93, makes music that’s difficult to categorize. I’ll go with psychedelic folk and leave it at that. While their music is bleak and ethereal on record, it takes on a more explosive quality on stage. Chasny wields a potent Telecaster in front of drummer Noel Von Harmonson and third member Steve Quenell playing a mysterious tone generator (which on closer inspection comprised a vintage radio unit, some effects pedals and a small mixing board). They opened with a shorter yet more abstract version of “River of Transfiguration,” the side-long piece from The Sun Awakens. Chasny set off bursts of noise like Neil Young in his Arc days and the drummer sprayed snare shots and pounded a gong. We were getting into Wolf Eyes and SUNN O))) territory for a while, what with the drones and the random elements, until things settled down for the rest of the 45-minute set. I recognized “Bless Your Blood,” “Black Wall,” and a jam based around “Torn By Wolves” and ”Wolves’ Pup,” the two instrumental tracks that bookend side one of the album. The arrangements of the songs I knew were sufficiently different from the album that I imagine a Six Organs… live recording would be well worth hearing. The main thing is, the trio were right into it through the whole show, with Chasny lurching around the stage, conducting the band by swinging his guitar neck around, and the other two responding in kind. That's all I ask for—musicianship and passion.