Six Organs of Admittance - School of the Flower

A contemporary master of midnight ragas, acoustic noise, and finger-picking polysyllables, Ben Chasny doesn't snag as many magazine covers as Devendra Banhart, but there's no doubt the Oakland guitarist is an equally compelling-- albeit more taciturn personality. For starters, Chasny overlaps his Six Organs of Admittance moniker's Buddhist origins with paganism, astral projections, prophetic dreams, surrealism, and a reverence for outsider folk masters. Then, of course, there's his day job as a psych monster in Comets on Fire, his craggy partnership with Deerhoof co-founder Rob Fisk in backwoods experimenters Badgerlore, a touring/recording relationship with Current 93's David Tibet, and a brief European tour with Joanna Newsom this April. As lazy as it is to pin Banhart to one specific scene or motif, Chasny proves even more difficult to jam within the confines of the "New Weird America" tag. It's like pigeonholing John Fahey's ghost.


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