Sunday 21 June 2015, 8pm
Two day residency from Ben Chasny – aka Six Organs of Admittance – following on from new album ‘Heaxadic’, which is based upon Chasny's intricately devised Hexadic System for music composition.
Taking as much inspiration from ambient textures and noise squall as it does on the fingerpicked acoustic guitar which has formed the bedrock of Chasny's recorded output, the Six Organs of Admittance sound has expanded to encompass a huge sonic span. Initially starting as a solo endeavour, it has since welcomed a wide array of collaborators both on recordings and in live performances, including the likes of Chris Corsano, Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers), and Alex Neilson.
“Ben Chasny, founder and sole continuing member of modern psychedelic legends Six Organs of Admittance, never puts on the same show twice. His performances range from five-person complete percussion heavy freakouts to solo, spare performances. It’s the same on the recorded front, covering a range from delicate acoustic constructions to electric-heavy riff monsters, not to mention his wide range of collaborations.” – Noisey
Ben Chasny's primary projects are Six Organs of Admittance (his solo psych folk project) and Comets on Fire (a psychedelic rock band). He made his recording debut in 1996 with his heavy, free rock project Plague Lounge on "The Wicker Image", an LP released conjointly between the New World of Sound and Holy Mountain labels. Holy Mountain went on to become the "home" of many of his releases under the Six Organs Of Admittance moniker. He has also released an album with Hiroyuki Usui under the name August Born. Chasny has lent his talents to other projects such as Badgerlore, Double Leopards, Current 93 and Magik Markers both in live performance and studio albums. More recent musical projects of his include the avant-folk trio Rangda (along with guitarist Richard Bishop and drummer Chris Corsano) and the more melodic and conventional 200 Years with Magik Markers' Elisa Ambrogio.
Over the last decade, C Joynes has ploughed a singular furrow through solo guitar, with a body of work incorporating English folk-tunes alongside North & West African music, and lifting proto-minimalist and improvised techniques from the European classical and avant-garde traditions.
Joynes has released 10 albums to date, including ‘Poor Boy On The Wire’ (2021), his first solo album dedicated wholly to the electric guitar; ‘The Borametz Tree’ (2019), recorded with long-term fellow travellers Dead Rat Orchestra; and ‘The Wild Wild Berry’, a collaboration with singer Stephanie Hladowski (fROOTS Editors Choice Album Of The Year 2012, MOJO Top 5 Folk Albums 2012). He has recorded a number of sessions for BBC Radio 3. He has also played extensively across the UK, Europe and the USA, sharing bills with a broad range of performers including Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy, Marc Ribot, Richard Dawson, Alasdair Roberts, Jack Rose, Josephine Foster, Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance and 75 Dollar Bill.
Shifting away from the electric guitar of his most recent solo activities, he’s currently exploring the uses of an amplified archtop guitar, exploiting the instrument’s potential for placing intricate parlour music alongside overdriven garage blues throw-downs and the brittle ringing tones of free improvisation.
“As much Conlon Nancarrow and Ali Farka Toure as Blind Lemon Jefferson, the compositional mind at work here can take apparently disparate threads of modernism and ethnic tradition and treat them as though they were all archaic blues styles learnt from dusty 78s.” – BRUCE RUSSELL, THE WIRE
“An inheritor to Davy Graham; a lone operator prone to unexpected collaborations, with a repertoire that crosses continents and timezones with consummate ease, and dashed off with a phenomenal, yet lightly applied technique.” ROB YOUNG, THE WIRE
