"That said, Chasny found himself a heavy fucking vibe and that led him to a transcendent but unrelenting place. If you've ever been intrigued by the sound of the sun imploding, this should be your cup of hemlock."
Spot on review by Mr. Stosuy
As a massive fan of Six Organs I'm not sure yet if I'd call this his best album, but fuck is it ever good.
However one of the reasons it may very well end up being my favorite is all about the context in which I really listened to it the first time.
Rewind to a few weeks ago. It's two days before I'm getting married. I get a copy of this record. Give it a few listens in the office, think it's pretty dope, but don't really have time to delve into it to heavily outside of playing "The Desert Is A Circle" about 15 times in a row having been blown away by the Morricone vibe of it.
The marriage happened over two days in a really nice a-frame chalet with a 35 foot wood cathedral ceiling. Great acoustics, great view of a lake, sweet pad all around. Saturday was a 'for the parents' vibed drunken evening with lots of dancing to what we coined "parent rock". Sunday night the parents and kids were told to go away so that me, the new wife, and all our friends could get down to a big old psychedelic party in the country. Copious amounts of free e's, mushrooms, weed, and booze were thrown into the middle of the room and things got busy on the dancefloor as most people partook in some multiple combo of above. 8 hours of dancehall, hip-hop, and techno later, the sun was starting to show itself on the horizon and somewhere in my drug addled state I thought... 'The Sun Awakens'... wait a minute... So with that I made the executive decision that we needed a music change and it was time to get our nod on to this new Six Organs record. And sure, part of this is the drugs talking, part of it was post-wedding bliss, part of it was the setting with a 35 foot window overlooking the lake, the acoustics of a 35 foot wood ceiling... but fuck me this record sounded great. Around the time that the 24 minute "River Of Transfiguration" took hold everybody stopped speaking until the last "ahh, ahh, ahhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh" trailed off. As the record ended and everyone got out of their personal zone, one of my friends looked over at me with huge spaced out eyes and said "they were building Egypt, and my cats were there", and all I could think was 'heavy...and fuck yeah, damn good album'.
There was also a certain sense of time passage involved with that listening. Almost a year ago to the day that I was getting married, me & the wife had actually split up about 6 hours before we were supposed to go see Six Organs Of Admittance play. I ended up going to the show anyway and being completely blown away, particularly by the end of the set in which after setting up various loops and noises on pedals, Chasny picked up a guitar, stepped to the mic, and launched into "Redefinition Of Being" (from "Nightly Trembling"). Hearing "Do you know me, la la la la la la la la la" reverberating through the church (what it is about me always listening to this dude with cathedral ceilings...) completely tore my head off and almost reduced me to tears. I'm no hippy (although if you don't know me, you'd be forgiven if you thought I was after reading this), but having 'The Sun Awakens' play at the wedding seemed to really bring things around full cycle.
So yeah. Dope record. Worth your money, and worthy of support.
And while we're at it.... upcoming Comets On Fire "Avatar" is a fucking blazer also in all it's Blue Cheer goodness. And somewhat unrelated, for psyche folk goodness in the same vein, I would also really recommend the Triple Burner album on Madrona records. Combo of Bruce Cawdron (ex-drummer from Godspeed You Black Emperor) and Harris Newman.
Let's hear it for stoner music. Something had to take the place of Spacemen 3 eventually for me to get high to.
