Somewhere between Iowa City and Denver, Ben Chasney is hitching a ride with Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan’s noise-rock duo the Magik Markers. Though he’s not a member of the band, Chasney’s past collaborations with them have made him a welcome guest to tag along for the tour. “It stresses me out when I’m just sitting there not having anything to do,” says Chasney.
Chasney’s latest album, Shelter from the Ash, is his tenth album under the moniker Six Organs of Admittance and his third with label Drag City. Shelter from the Ash demonstrates Chasney’s unusual ability to engulf listeners in layered production of guitars, fuzz, percussion, and resonant vocals.
Recorded in Tim Green’s (The Fucking Champs, Nation of Ulysses) expansive San Francisco studio, the album used a mass assortment of instrumentation. “I actually wrote the songs before I went into the studio. That was kind of new. Usually I try to improvise the songs in the studio. I have a basic thing when I go in, ideas written in a notebook, but this time I recorded on a four-track before I went in.” In the past, Chasney would sink himself deep in the niche of freak-folk and psychedelic experimentation.
Even at his most accessible, the music’s stream-of-conscious meanderings are not for everyone. “If there are a few people that get it, that’s all I really want. If everyone listened to the album, it wouldn’t be as special.”
-Mike Hilleary
Six Organs of Admittance: www.sixorgans.com
Drag City Records: www.dragcity.com