Six Organs of Admittance, Companion Rises: Together and Alone
As a fan of Ben Chasny‘s sometimes-solo-project/sometimes-band Six Organs of Admittance, I try to be careful not to look at too much of what he says about any given release before I form my own impressions, because what I’ve found over time is that the guitarist/vocalist/synthesist/whatever-else-ist carries a rare level of insight into his own output and brings such a firm sense of consciousness to what he does that how the record comes across in listening invariably ends up hued by what he’s said. In the case of Companion Rises — the follow-up to 2017’s Burning the Threshold (review here) — Chasny is the only player on the album and he weaves songs that vary between layers of intertwining acoustic and electric guitars and periodic washes of synth. It is a solo record, and brings out some of the intimacy of his earlier, bedroom-folk experimentations, but invariably bears the hallmarks of his overarching maturity of craft, and that’s shown early in the nine-cut/39-minute long-player with the at-least-I-think-it’s-keyboard waves undulating in the intro “Pacific” and the subsequent shift into “Two Forms Moving.”
Like good literature, these two songs are more or less giving the listener the information they need to process the context of much of what follows. A decidedly Californian vibe — Chasny is currently listed as being in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but has roots as well in San Francisco — plays out through “Pacific” and in later pieces like “The 101,” the title of which is even phrased in a SoCal manner, in which a busy rhythm of seemingly looped acoustic guitar and a plugged in solo arrives in somewhat manic fashion accompanying a bluesy paean to the coastal highway itself. The frenetic feel there is something of an extension of what happens in “Two Forms Moving” earlier, as the track realizes two progressions at once as the lyrics also tie into the title, and Chasny — who created a mathematical system of guitar playing and in 2015 released a pair of albums called Hexadic, as well as an instructional book for others, is no stranger to such conceptualism — executes acoustic and electric movements at the same time. One, then, is the companion of the other. It all ties in, or at very least can be interpreted as doing so.
With “Two Forms Moving” offering such a willfully multifaceted take, its feel becomes intense by the time the solo and the acoustic lines are shifting through their build. The entirety of Companion Rises doesn’t necessarily hold that pattern, but “The Scout is Here,” which follows directly, does. But the balance of the mix shifts, so that Chasny‘s vocal melody is more prominent, the electric guitar comes in intermittent spurts of solo flourish early on, and later shifts to a complementary role playing off the acoustic part and thus the song is more cohesive and less mindboggling on the whole. There is still forward movement in the two guitars — and there might be more than two by the time the five-minute track gives way to amp hum to close — but it’s still easier for the listener to process than some of what’s come before. “Black Tea” continues that thread, pushing the electric further down and bringing in simple percussion — it might be a hand tapping a guitar — as the singing takes on multiple layers and moves gorgeously through several verses. It is songs like “Black Tea” and the centerpiece title-track right after it that showcase why Six Organs of Admittance is still so often considered folk having long since let go of most genre conventions.
If one is thinking of companionship, then that between “Black Tea” and “Companion Rises” makes all the more sense, as well as that of “Haunted and Known” and the penultimate “Mark Yourself,” the former of which takes a subdued, quiet moodiness that is as quintessentially Six Organs of Admittance as one could possibly hope for and blasts it apart after three minutes or so with a consuming wash of synth backed by far-off howls of electric guitar. It is beautiful and cinematic in kind, not rife with drama or pretense, but it feels grand just the same, and “Mark Yourself” answers back by bringing acoustic and electrics forms together once again, this time with other looped vocal arrangements and more besides, but gradually fading to a standalone line of piano, giving way to the drone soundscaping of closer “Worn Down to the Light,” which at four minutes long is an instrumentalist response perhaps to “Pacific,” though decidedly less wavy in its execution. In any case, by then, the album’s theme is well established and brought to fruition through idea and craft alike.
Ultimately, there is enough depth to Chasny‘s songwriting that the individual listener can decide how deep they want to go in their own read. Companion Rises, which even unto its sunset-thus-likely-moonrise cover art speaks to the notions it puts forth, balances richness and fullness of sound with the aforementioned sense of intimacy that comes in part simply from being a solo LP, even playing much of this material live would require a band or at least a pedal board big enough to accommodate one — a well-programmed laptop would do it too, one guesses. And even as it has to be acknowledged that although so much of Companion Rises is given to considerations of togetherness, it was made by one person alone, it seems clear through the listening experience that what’s being meditated on throughout is a sense of interaction. Place is part of it, as “Pacific” and “The 101” show, but it runs deeper through “Two Forms Moving,” “The Scout is Here” and even “Black Tea” and “Companion Rises” itself, the sweetness of the melody in that title-track at a deceptive peace with the organ line that keeps it company.
One way or the other — or, more likely, both — Six Organs of Admittance manifests loneliness and the excitement at being with others, and even if that interpretation is totally wrong and the album title has nothing to do with anything in the tracks and the whole thing is a lie meant to mislead anyone who takes the record on, it doesn’t matter. The simple fact that these songs can speak to these ideas and potentially others is further proof of how crucial Chasny‘s work is.
>Six Organs of Admittance, Companion Rises (2020)
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