Six Organs Of Admittance Manifestation CD

If there were one track that completely illustrated the strange and mystical magic that is Six Organs of Admittance, "Manifestation" is it. Issued on vinyl in a numbered, limited edition of 500 in 1999, "Manifestation" is a single 22-minute track. (The other side of the record was an etched drawing of the sun.) Raga-like in its meandering textures and meditative quality, yet utterly different because of its lack of fixed rhythms, Six Organs is Ben Chasny and bandmates Jennifer Juniper Stratford, and percussionist and electronics whiz Utrillo Kushner (from Comets on Fire, of which Chasny is now a full-time member.) The sheer drift and wander of "Manifestation" is dreamy, but not in any ambient way. It is a music that is active, participatory and engaged. It moves through musical universes harmonically, dynamically, and texturally. Electric and acoustic guitars, percussion, electronics, droning voices, and sounds from the ether approach, reside for a time, and move off into other directions, inviting other ones to take their places. There is gentleness and tension, emergence and disappearance, change being the only constant until it enters into silence. This is one of those recordings that cannot be heard the same way twice; and in its ethereal unimposing heart, it is the sound of essence that is at once familiar and wholly other, like nature itself. ~ Thom Jurek

If there were one track that completely illustrated the strange and mystical magic that is Six Organs of Admittance, "Manifestation" is it. Issued on vinyl in a numbered, limited edition of 500 in 1999, "Manifestation" is a single 22-minute track. (The other side of the record was an etched drawing of the sun.) Raga-like in its meandering textures and meditative quality, yet utterly different because of its lack of fixed rhythms, Six Organs is Ben Chasny and bandmates Jennifer Juniper Stratford, and percussionist and electronics whiz Utrillo Kushner (from Comets on Fire, of which Chasny is now a full-time member.) The sheer drift and wander of "Manifestation" is dreamy, but not in any ambient way. It is a music that is active, participatory and engaged. It moves through musical universes harmonically, dynamically, and texturally. Electric and acoustic guitars, percussion, electronics, droning voices, and sounds from the ether approach, reside for a time, and move off into other directions, inviting other ones to take their places. There is gentleness and tension, emergence and disappearance, change being the only constant until it enters into silence. [On this CD reissue, courtesy of those brave and kind folks at Strange Attractors, "Manifestation" is accompanied by a second suite-like piece in six sections using different modalities and tunings. Chasny is accompanied here by Mike Mills who performs "vinyl etchings," and on one section by Current 93's David Tibet offering spoken word. The only constant is the sound of the vinyl being played in the blank spaces where the sound is static, repetitive, whispering, and quietly insistent. Chasny uses his stunning guitar technique on acoustic guitar, the turntable, and an autoharp to guide listeners into the slipstream of his utterly arresting and otherworldly beautiful sound universe. The effect is timeless, spaceless, utterly present and simultaneously forgotten, erased from memory as it changes and moves in its objective to find the "Harmony of the spheres" that Vilayat Khan wrote and spoke of so eloquently. This is one of those recordings that cannot be heard the same way twice; and in its ethereal unimposing heart, it is the sound of essence that is at once familiar and wholly other, like nature itself.] ~ Thom Jurek

Recording information: 2000.Uncut (p.138) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[A] mesh of Wiccan raga and John Fahey-ish picking..."