Six Organs Of Admittance School Of The Flower CD

The music of Six Organs of Admittance is gauzy, lilting, and gently psychedelic. Centered on the quietly mesmerizing acoustic-guitar patterns of Ben Chasny (Comets on Fire), SCHOOL OF THE FLOWER, the band's Drag City debut, plays like the soundtrack to the nebulous zone between sleeping and waking. The initial avant-garde drum clatter and white noise of "Eighth Cognition/All You've Left" gives way to a quiet murmur, and Chasny's under-the-radar singing floats in, sounding somehow comforting and ghostly at once.

The rest of the album follows suit, from delicate ballads like "Words for Two" to such alluring, John Fahey-inspired guitar journeys as "Saint Cloud" (in which an ominous vocal and an electric drone gradually emerge beneath the tender main passage). The album's centerpiece is the 13-minute-plus title track, which loops an acoustic phrase, then gradually surrounds it with a subdued chaos of drums and distorted guitar solos, before its elegant return to the lone melody. Even at its most sonically dense, SCHOOL OF THE FLOWER is as light and buoyant as a leaf in the wind, resulting in a fresh, thoroughly appealing slice of psychedelia-tinged folk.

Personnel: Ben Chesny (vocals, strings, organ); Chris Corsano (organ, drums, percussion).

Recording information: Key Club (08/2004).

Uncut (p.73) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Chasny's raga picking, deep-pile carpets of fuzz-guitar fudge and vocal incantation belies his more hardcore contributions to sludge-rockers Comets On Fire."
Alternative Press (p.118) - 5 out of 5 - "[A] series of sparse ruminations on barren landscapes and cosmic coincidence that comprises weird sound effects, acoustic finger-picking, tape loops and spectral vocal incantations."
Magnet (p.53) - Ranked #20 in Magnet's "The 20 Best Albums Of 2005" - "[K]notty guitar rambles, jazz fusion, tranquil raga and murmured hymnals coalesce to create a perfect measure of midnight psychedelia."
The Wire (p.41) - Included in The Wire's "2005 Rewind: 50 Records Of The Year."
The Wire (p.59) - "[T]heir most beautifully conceived and ambitiously extended work to date."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.64) - Ranked #48 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2005" - "Neither weird nor folk, but definitely new."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.92) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[B]eginning as a relatively calm sounds-of-the-universe drift through gamelan chime before things start to unravel."