Freak Scene: Ben Chasny Guest Edition

October 31, 2007


In a special Halloween edition of Freak Scene, our regular columnist dresses up as Ben Chasny bka Six Organs of Admittance.





A few years back someone told me there are two types of musicians, those who act as if their music was created out of the blue and those who reveal the ladder to show where they came from. Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance is the latter. As much of a fan as an artist, Chasny is as excited about new records as I am. Speaking of new records, Six Organs of Admittance has a new one coming in November entitled Shelter from the Ash. Like all Six Organs records it features the dynamic, emotive guitar playing of Chasny, although this time he’s got some friends with him from Magik Markers, Comets on Fire and others, yet its definitely still Chasny’s show all the way. Here’s another entry in the growing glorious cannon of Six Organs of Admittance. But I’ve spent too many years writing about how great Six Organs is. Instead we got Mr. Chasny to talk about a few of his fave new releases, exclusively here for the Freak Scene audience. We seem to be in agreement in a lot of current places, so if you don’t believe me, believe Six Organs.
-STEVE LOWENTHAL



Blues Control, Blues Control [Holy Mountain]

It doesn't get much better than downing beers up
front
at a Blues Control show at the Goodbye Blue Monday
and
having Russ Waterhouse walk towards the audience and
shove the pointed head of his blue Charvel or
Jackson
whatever-the-fuck 80's hair-metal guitar right up to
your nose with the conviction of Steve Vai but with
the sound of a million maggots eating up his
distortion pedal and fornicating in his guitar cord
while Lea Cho plays some fucked up Cosmic Jokers on
Windam Hill shroom shit. The first song on this
record
comes pretty close though. What the fuck? Is that
funk? FUNK? This record has more "what the fuck
moments" than any other I can think of. And the
songs
are instantly recognizable. If someone puts it on a
comp you know what it is immediately. Also, I met
Russ
in a skate chat room 14 years ago. True.



Hoor-Paar-Kraat, An Anagram Hypnotic (Small Doses)

I picked this off of the wall at Aquarius a while
back
because it looked cool as shit, got home and it was
my
favorite record of the whole haul. Just ultra creepy
weirdness like non-beat oriented Nurse With Wound,
Coil's How To Destroy Angels or Haino's Nijiumu
disk,
but with ominous guitar drones that sound like David
Jackman hijacked a semi-truck full of Les Pauls and
just when you think it's going to dive into a
doom-drone dirge pulls back at the last second and
you
end up flying into a face full of mechanical frog
squall. Some googling shows that the name is some
OTO
business (keep an eye out for Hymenaeus Beta and his
invisible cats, dudes!). But yeah, silk-screened
grey
on black home-made cover, killer drone and
surrealist
weirdness. Plus, it's heavy as shit.



Son Of Earth, Pet (Apostasy Recordings)

Son of a bitch is more like it! These guys are
obviously trying to fuck my head into oblivion. It's
a
good thing thing I am a good masochist. Beautiful
and
strange aural conversation coming from an
improvisational
shoot-first-and-let-God-sort-them-out
way. Submarine ping pong sonar action that you just
know is going to swell up and overtake you, just
like
the end of Das Boot. In fact, I wouldn't be
surprised
if these guys did this whole thing while watching
Das
Boot
. They aren't afraid to use a heavy guitar
either
but they add a nice amount of Partch and Moondog
into
the whole thing and it just sounds so damn American!
You can call this Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska for
2007.



Sapat, Mortise and Tenon (Siltbreeze)

Hands down one of the top 5 records of the year.
It's
as if Bob Seegar sound system and Amon Duul I got
all
twisted up in that machine from The Fly and this
beautiful and sad and amazing creature came crawling
out. I don' even know what to say. All I ever do is
speak in hyperbole when describing records and this
one deserves just a sweet and sober reflection, It's
amazing and so inspirational. I was at a friends
house
before the actual thing came out and they put on a
copy of it and we were sitting around bullshitting
for
hours and it just hit me over the head and I asked
who
it was and then Sapat just pummeled me into the
heavens. When I think of all the bullshit that gets
sent out there into the world and then you think of
this record that is just so pristine and balanced
and
perfect and how I haven't heard hardly anyone
talking
about it, that's just sad. Or maybe I'm just hanging
out in the wrong places. Great LP.


SEND US YOUR STUFF! VINYL, CASSETTES, CDRS, LATHES are welcome and encouraged:

The FADER

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Posted: October 31, 2007
Freak Scene: Ben Chasny Guest Edition