Six Organs of Admittance - School of the Flower (Drag City)

It's kind of funny how I like this whole acidfolk thing when people constantly refer to it as incense drenched and freaky. Considering how much I hate the smell of incense and how biased I am towards those hippie types that walk on sandals day in and day out. Not my kind of thing really. That's probably why I don't play my own acoustic guitar in some park underneath a big ol' tree with sticks of incense laying around. I prefer to take this album in on the couch, eyes closed, legs stretched and mind set on meditation (oh!). It's modern day society's little extra that we, music lovers, can drown ourselves in this vast variety of different musics. We can dabble in all types of ambient, get our rocks off to some good old rock 'n' retro, put our g's up and ho's down to quality hiphop and grime and get our necks twisted, headbanging to terrific metal like that from the Haunted and Pig Destroyer. And that's not all. You have your weird stuff like the magnicificent Excepter, Black Dice, Sightings, Gang Gang Dance and the unconscious singsongs of Animal Collective.

Last year marked the rise and rise of a new folk movement spearheaded by Devendra Banhart. Around that movement in which Joanna Newsom, CocoRosie and others blossomed, a diversity of experimental chapters circled endlessly along droning acoustics and distant mantra-like singing. Those chapters are everywhere, in every style of music and it's right in the middle of that clouded sky that I hope to find new and glorious sounds on which I am trying to eloborate on this spot right here, in the periphery of the worldwide blogosphere.

When I came across Six Organs of Admittance last year I wasn't immediately flabbergasted or in awe of his freefolkish noodlings. That started to change when I stumbled upon The Manifestation. Two twenty plus minute tracks which are saturated in thick hypnotic ambience. You can hear Chasny's keen on Fahey like guitarplaying. He adds layers of bells, droning vocal moments and eastern percussion to it which makes the whole of The Manifestation an otherworldly, meditional experience.

This doesn't really resemble Chasny's latest output, School of the Flower, though. While The Manifestation is much more of a floating matter, School of the Flower drifts just above ground level, exploring popstructures alongside more experimental urges. The drumming intro of 'Eight Cognition/All You've Left' developes a Can like groove while Chasny turns up the volume on his guitar a little before releasing a delicate and sweet melody that, together with Chasny's soothing vocals, make up the rest of the track. The first half of the album consists mostly of relatively normal songstructures sometimes even resembling the semi-traditional folk stuff of Banhart and Co. ('Words For Two').

When signing to Drag City Chasny told the label he wanted to explore songstructures but he also made clear he wanted "the freedom to do some experimental stuff" and as 'Saint Cloud' progresses he moves into more and more obscure territory. The simple and reflective guitarnoodling changes into a web of droning feedback and in the distant there are floating mantra's, that, as far as I'm concerned, could have been going on and on and on and on and , you know, forever. It could be the soundtrack to an afternoon of puffin' on a waterpipe in a small Moroccan teahouse somewhere in the Atlas mountains. 'Procession of Cherry Blossomed Spirits' drifts further into meditational fingerpicking guitarwork, more or less sounding like Bardo Pond if they plugged out their instruments, which is funny cos in 'Home' Chasny actually plugs in his guitar and unleashes some offkey screeches throughout a furthermore sweet and folky song. Underneath it all lies a basic body of virtually unrecognizable percussion paterns by occasional Sunburned Hand of the Man contributor Chris Corsano.

Centerpiece of this work is the 13 minute title track. Here Chasny lays down a simple guitarmelody that multiplies several times, Corsano's free jazz drumming here is very recognizable and a big part in the way the track evolves with Chasny, eventually plugging in his guitar again and submitting some suffocating electric solo's out of his guitar. As the centerpiece (but not exactly) it takes up too much energy for the rest of the record to be as engaging as the first part. However, 'Thicker Than Smokey' develops as a nice come down. Originally recorded by an obscure folky called Gary Higgins (on Red Hash, 1973), a sweet and sour little folk song that seems made for this new folk era. The closing track 'Lisboa' is nothing more than that, a cleancut acoustic melody that fades into not much at all. It's this all in all weak ending that takes away a little of the magic from the first part but nonetheless School of the Flower is a stunning trip through Mid-Eastern valleys clouded with a thick of summery dawn.

My next and urgent mission now is to find that Gary Higgins record. Red Hash people, anyone?