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September 14, 2005
crushing hopes and dreams in a cavalier way
Electric Six Organs of Admittance - Close to the Sky
This is not, as Michael suggested in the comments the other day, a mash-up of Electric Six and Six Organs of Admittance (which, if anyone cares to try their hand at such a thing, I will post the resultant insanity here, tout de suite). What this actually is has sort of a story behind it.
Ethan Miller (from Comets on Fire) writes in his liner notes to "Bread, Beard, and Bear's Prayers", that this track comes from a period in 2002 when Ben Chasny (= Six Organs) asked Comets to serve as his backing band, for a sort of free/noisy/groove version of Six Organs. They played a few shows, mostly on the West Coast apparently, and recorded some of their rehearsals for a full LP that was going to come out at some point under the Electric Six Organs of Admittance name. Eventually, Chasny decided to break-up the project (sorta) and the Electric LP remains in limbo.
'Close to the Sky' though was chosen by Ethan Miller for inclusion on the "Bread, Beard, and Bear's Prayers" compilation that he did for Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint. And thank god he did, because this song is out of this world great. As Miller himself says, "the vocals were muddy as hell but great grooves and solos". And it's true- despite Chasny's voice sounding subterranean, it still shines through clearly, and the guitars on 'Close to the Sky' are alternately abrasive, scrambling, decorative, and absolutely searing. Listen to it- you won't be disappointed.
I have to say though, if there's a whole album of this kind of stuff out there somewhere, Chasny and Comets on Fire should think seriously about releasing it, cause it's just jaw-droppingly pretty. The sounds they get are inspired, in the literal sense- everything seems so 'breathed into'.
"Bread, Beard, and Bear's Prayers" is available over at Bastet. One note about this compilation though: it is uniformly excellent, from beginning to end, and the artwork/packaging is immaculate, with a hand-stitched cover and fantastic silk-screened art. Plus it's got a bear on the cover, and how can you resist that, really?
Posted by Kevin at September 14, 2005 12:08 AM
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