Six Organs' Ben Chasny & Seven Woods voice Rick Tomlinson make Waves

Ben and Rick with two guitars in Todmorden created the chilled thriller Waves – check out "Waking of Insects" on yer headphones.

If you're still awake, you can get a copy of Ben & Rick's new Waves album via Bandcamp right here.

Robbie Basho doc DVD and 5-CD set of unissued recordings on the way

Voice of the Eagle, Liam Barker's 2015 film about avant-folk guitarist Robbie Basho is out Dec 13 followed by a massive set of unreleased material.  

Here's the scoop...
Before his bizarre death at the hands of a chiropractor, Robbie Basho was sure that his compositions would not outlast him. Orphaned during infancy, diagnosed with synaesthesia (a union of the senses that caused him to interpret sound as colour) and claiming to be the reincarnation of a 17th century poet -- the Baltimore-born guitarist and singer's musical output was as equally as outlandish as his persona.

In his brief and troubled life he laid the foundations for radical changes to the musical landscape of America during the 1960s and 70s but reaped little more than a sparse (if fervent) following during his lifetime.

Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho (MVD Entertainment) is a journey into the heart of an artist's lifelong struggle -- designed to illuminate and satiate existing fans while serving as a perfect starting point for the uninitiated.

Featuring interviews with Pete Townshend and Country Joe McDonald as well as Basho's former students, contemporaries, religious associates and few close friends, Liam Barker's documentary integrates new information and anecdotes on Basho with previously uncovered archival material and photography of the natural phenomena and landscapes that informed his work. Voice of the Eagle is out on Blu-Ray/DVD December 13th. Watch the trailer below. Pre-order it right here.





ABOUT THE BOXED SET:

Robbie Basho (1940-1986) is widely regarded as one of the progenitors of what's commonly known today as American Primitive guitar. Growing up in Maryland alongside neo-traditional guitar explorers John Fahey and Max Ochs, Basho's path would take a decidedly different turn, bringing Hindi, Indian, Japanese and Native American musical traditions into his work. His albums for Takoma and Vanguard have left an indelible trail of influence across generations of musicians, from William Ackerman and Pete Townshend to Ben Chasny and William Tyler.

Liam Barker first became aware of Basho having purchased Tompkins Square's reissue of Venus in Cancer, released in 2006. This led him on an incredible fact-finding expedition, unraveling the many layers of mystery surrounding Basho's life and death, all deftly compiled and depicted in his documentary film, Voice of the Eagle : The Enigma of Robbie Basho.

During the research process, Barker came across a large cache of unheard Basho tapes recorded throughout his career, ranging roughly from 1965-1985. By arrangement with Basho's Estate and the original custodians of the tapes, Tompkins Square is putting together a 5CD set of previously unreleased material to be called Song of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes. The label plans to release a single disc vinyl LP as well. The set includes notes by Barker, Henry Kaiser, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Glenn Jones and Richard Osborn, as well as many unseen photographs. Release date TBA.

Watch a clip of Robbie Basho performing live on KQED-TV in 1971...

Peter Walker @ The Tranzac, Saturday

Finger-style guitar virtuoso Peter Walker – a big influence on Ben Chasny – makes a rare Toronto appearance.

Rangda w/ Wyrd Visions, Sacred Lamp @ Double Double Land, Tuesday

Rangda's Ben Chasny, Chris Corsano and Richard Bishop have a new album they think you should hear. 

Ever since the trio of Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls), Ben Chasny (Plague Lounge, Badgerlore, August Born, Comets On Fire) and Chris Corsano (Jandek, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Björk)  banded together, the 'supergroup' handle has stuck in Rangda's collective craw. We only meant: "gee, what a super group!" But whatever, what's done is done – The Heretic's Bargain takes a nail gun to that idea's coffin, firmly reinforcing Rangda as a band with a shared intuition, instead of the sum of three separate parts.

After years of recording and touring together, Bishop and Chasny's guitar playing has mutated via some kind of lateral gene transfer of their musical DNA, and the rhythms ridden by Rangda feel mutually funded (though Corsano's beat-making is as fine-lined and rawly inspired as ever).

The Heretic's Bargain takes territories that Rangda explored on their first two albums - the abraded fury and free forms off False Flag and the serpentine Rang-dang-doodle songatechture from Formerly Extinct - and evolves them further into a grand unified development in music.

Lots of ground is covered, but it's all part of the same earth. Until you fall off the edge in the end. The Heretic's Bargain is out now on Drag City. Sharing the bill with Rangda at Double Double Land (209 Augusta) tonight will be Wyrd Visions and Sacred Lamp with DJ Dan Vila playing stuff he enjoys between sets while you text with your pals about the unseasonably warm weather. Watch the fab new video for Rangda's The Sin Eaters directed by Elisa Ambrogio (of Magik Markers and The Brain Band infamy) who was not coincidentally in 200 Years and Basalt Fingers with Ben Chasny.  

Six Organs Of Admittance @ The Horseshoe, Monday

Six Organs of Admittance idea man Ben Chasny isn't content to merely be outstanding in his field. 

Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny has devised his very own system of musical composition, The Hexadic System, which is the basis for his latest album, Hexadic, which Drag City issued back in February.

How The Hexadic System came to be...
Ben Chasny's restless intellect has regularly guided the progress of his creation. A lyrical mastery of acoustic finger-picking would be enough to build a body of work for most musicians; this is just the stepping-off point for Ben. From the earliest days of private-press psych home recordings, Six Organs of Admittance has sought out alternative spaces in which to make music and challenge audiences to keep up with his rapid advances into new terrain. Over the last two years Ben assembled a comprehensive system of musical composition. Designed to free sound and language from rational order and replace calculation with indeterminacy, The Hexadic System is a catalyst to extinguish patterns and generate new means of chord progressions and choices.

Though it was not his intention upon creating this unique system, the structures generated were so compelling, that they soon became the bones of the next Six Organs record. This is the longest time between Six Organs records since Ben started making them in 1998. This is also why Hexadic sounds unlike anything else made this year, and generally unlike most other things made ever.

The System builds all of the tonal fields, chord changes, scales, and lyrics on Hexadic, creating the framework of the songs that the musicians engage with. Yet the System is open; within the framework, Chasny's own personal aesthetics - such as the production mode of loud guitars, the order of songs, the editing of length, were all conscious decisions made to communicate the pieces. The exact same combinatorial patterns used on this record would generate infinite results, depending on the choices of the individual. Ben's years of study have produced an operational agent that has not only built all the songs on Hexadic but is also a system anyone can use to restructure their ways of habit.

With a desire to provoke the unconscious and spring past the strictures and limits of the conscious mind, this was the goal: to use the System to make heavy music with as few "heavy" signifiers as possible. The ones that are left: Volume. Distortion. Impact! This is Hexadic: the sound of the System in the hands of Six Organs of Admittance.

Here's some footage of Six Organs of Admittance raging full-on at The Boot & Saddle in Philadelphia last week prefaced by a clip of a much more introspective Ben Chasny performing the placid Lisboa at London's Café OTO back in October.