Having released the full-length Luminous Night and rarities compilation RTZ thus far in 2009, experimental folk guru Ben Chasny was pretty much obligated to take his Six Organs of Admittance on the road. This time, Vancouver won the "lone Canadian tour stop" sweepstakes, and the openers didn't disappoint.
Seattle's Master Musicians of Bukkake are not nearly as salacious as their name suggests. Their elaborate costumes found the lead singer draped in something that resembled the more substantial lichens of the Pacific Northwest, and the rest of the seven-piece wore robes and wizard hats draped with gauze. Completing the effect was a pair of copious fog machines, with all of this complementing the music well. The Master Musicians played epic prog/drone metal with a dash of Eastern scales, and the singer alternated between a throaty growl and a startling, otherworldly falsetto yelp. At the end of their set, one member marched through the crowd playing some large woodwind instrument, completing what was a distinctly ritualistic experience.
Next up was Portland's Intelligence, jarringly different from what preceded them. Front-man Lars Finberg (also of the seemingly dormant A-Frames) played wistful and world-weary lo-fi pop on a 12-string electric guitar, in short to-the-point bursts. As it turned out, their set was as terse as their songs, leaving people wanting more.
As Ben Chasny took the stage, the sparsely populated Biltmore suddenly filled up with true believers — Six Organs of Admittance is in that class of long-lived performers whose output is so consistently solid as to inspire devout followers. On paper, Chasny's approach doesn't sound that great: dude accompanies self on guitar, playing drone folk that swells and ebbs, but never really reaches a heightened climax. The thing is that he does it so skillfully that it's mesmerizing instead of boring, and as one of the originators of the genre, he's able to do it with authority.
For the last few songs of the night, Chasny was joined on stage by members of the Master Musicians of Bukkake, but oddly, this broke the spell Six Organs had woven — there was just too much going on, a wash of distortion and noodling that obscured what had made the evening so appealing. A strange and seemingly abortive solo encore did nothing to rectify this, but the overall effect of the show was trance-inducing and achingly pretty: exactly what you would hope for from Six Organs of Admittance.
Seattle's Master Musicians of Bukkake are not nearly as salacious as their name suggests. Their elaborate costumes found the lead singer draped in something that resembled the more substantial lichens of the Pacific Northwest, and the rest of the seven-piece wore robes and wizard hats draped with gauze. Completing the effect was a pair of copious fog machines, with all of this complementing the music well. The Master Musicians played epic prog/drone metal with a dash of Eastern scales, and the singer alternated between a throaty growl and a startling, otherworldly falsetto yelp. At the end of their set, one member marched through the crowd playing some large woodwind instrument, completing what was a distinctly ritualistic experience.
Next up was Portland's Intelligence, jarringly different from what preceded them. Front-man Lars Finberg (also of the seemingly dormant A-Frames) played wistful and world-weary lo-fi pop on a 12-string electric guitar, in short to-the-point bursts. As it turned out, their set was as terse as their songs, leaving people wanting more.
As Ben Chasny took the stage, the sparsely populated Biltmore suddenly filled up with true believers — Six Organs of Admittance is in that class of long-lived performers whose output is so consistently solid as to inspire devout followers. On paper, Chasny's approach doesn't sound that great: dude accompanies self on guitar, playing drone folk that swells and ebbs, but never really reaches a heightened climax. The thing is that he does it so skillfully that it's mesmerizing instead of boring, and as one of the originators of the genre, he's able to do it with authority.
For the last few songs of the night, Chasny was joined on stage by members of the Master Musicians of Bukkake, but oddly, this broke the spell Six Organs had woven — there was just too much going on, a wash of distortion and noodling that obscured what had made the evening so appealing. A strange and seemingly abortive solo encore did nothing to rectify this, but the overall effect of the show was trance-inducing and achingly pretty: exactly what you would hope for from Six Organs of Admittance.
