Six Organs of Admittance - "Shelter From the Ash"

Six Organs of Admittance - Strangled Road (Drag City 2007)

Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter From the Ash / Drag City

Ben Chasny is a guy who's got such a wealth of material already behind him that putting something like Shelter From the Ash, something like his tenth proper album over the last decade, into perspective takes a little work. It's always been clear that this alias was his solo ride and other affiliations - most notably Comets on Fire, but also Current 93, Magik Markers and Badgerlore) - are not where he devotes most of his musical resources. As we know, those groups are all very well and good... But there's something about Six Organs that speaks something special. Being a fan (or even a casual admirer) is like being part of a great secret that so many people have heard about but not really participated in.

Hopefully, Shelter From the Ash is where that changes. This is one of Chasny's best records under any name for whatever that's worth, and his music here resonates with the autumnal haze so many psych-folk records try for and fail to achieve. The finger-picking effortlessness and daubed bits of electric guitar squall dot this rural landscape of rolling meadows and blissfully empty valleys. It's like driving through western New York in the middle of the night, or maybe wandering around in a Mumbai sunrise. It is Mumbai now, right? I think it is.

"Alone With the Alone" doesn't sound like a very promising title. Perhaps better suited to Taking Back Sunday acolytes or She Wants Revenge b-side choruses, "Alone With the Alone" starts sort of where 2006's The Sun Awakens left off: A tantric build with an Eastern feel to it. Instead of continuing with the epic drones that made last year's release so excellent, "Alone With the Alone" signals another change in direction, engaging the haunting hymnals with more traditional song structures. Noel Harmonson's drums add an extra edge to a very tense beginning, but the suspense will engage you right from the first plucked chord. Fade in Tim Green's bluesy solo and you've got yourself a hell of an opener. This is approximately where The Golden Road were trying to go but got too caught up in their Neil Young mimicry. Okay, Gettin' Gone wasn't really that bad. This, admittedly, is better.

Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Markers fame provides accompaniment for Chasny on "Strangled Road." The big story isn't really that her angelic voice is so delicately intertwined with Chasny's leads but that there is so much space between sounds in the verses. Ironically, this song is comparatively short at only five-and-a-half minutes, but the subtle integration of all of his albums up to this point has Chasny showing how smart he can be with smaller amounts of both space and sound.

"Final Wing," the longest song to be found here, is also one of the best in an album full of great songs. With a Wurlitzer dusted off for the second track in a row (following "Goddess Atonement"), both Chasny and Green returning to drone and outsider roots with Zahir and Batin sounds. I'm not sure what kinds of effects Chasny has in mind with those descriptions because there are no specific instruments for these presumably Islamic "sounds," but the repetition of the main melody anchors everything going on around it... whatever "everything" is. Despite its relatively simple line, it's also one of the most engaging songs on the record and an unquestionable highlight.

It could not end any more appropriately than "Goodnight," a fine send-off. Not quite instrumental but with no words in the booklet to make it official, Chasny quietly finishes off the album on a low note with little more than an acoustic guitar, Ambrogio's vocals and Green's organ. Shelter From the Ash is one of the most touching records of 2007 by a man who has inspired a legion of acid-folk revivalists and neo-hippies to pick up guitars and see what notes sound the most relaxing. More than any of that is the underlying notion that this is a cathartic record. It's not an album you can just pop in and rock out to, but it's also not an album to forget you're listening to. The tension, the release, the considered instrumentation... If you didn't love Six Organs of Admittance before, now is the time to try again. Shelter From the Ash won't let you down.