Six Organs Of Admittance‘s Ben Chasny is an artist as prolific as he is chameleonic, with his recorded output ranging from sunny, free flowing folk to shimmering dronescapes and scorching elongated jams. You can never be completely sure what Chasny has in store for you when it comes to the band’s live performances, but the news that he will be accompanied for his Supersonc set by his former Comets On Fire band mates, Ben Flashman and Utrillo Kushner, may indicate that this could be one of his more intensive, psych-rock oriented sets. A recent review of this lineup in the LA Times described their set as thus:
Throughout the night, bassist Ben Flashman and drummer Utrillo Kushner laid down syrupy Post-Black Sabbath structures over which Chasny and rhythm guitarist Noel Von Harmonson roamed, locking into a groove for chunks of songs before loosely and gracefully turning themselves over to instrumental exploration, usually focused on Chasny’s solos.
Speaking to the Quietus, Chasny explained the reasoning for reunited with Flashman and Kushner:
I think the key energy was just getting back together with a group of friends that hadn’t all played music together in quite some time. The fact that we were all in Comets is sort of secondary to the fact that we have all played music for a long time and toured hard and knew each other pretty well sonically. It’s definitely not a Comets reunion. I mean, I don’t really think we’ve ever broken up. There has never been a point where Comets said, “We are done.” We’ve just been concentrating on other things for a while.
Chasny fans are spoilt for choice this year, as the guitarist will also be performing as part of experimental supergroup Rangda alongside Sir Richard Bishop and Chris Corsano. In the same interview, Chasny mentioned the different musical chemistries between each different group:
After playing together in Rangda I think we have a closer musical relationship now. It’s not so much a something that can be exactly pinned down as it is a more subconscious way of acting and reacting with each other. The same goes for the guys in Comets. I think as any group of people play music with each other they start to understand the space that they operate in more and more in relationship to each other.
You can read the full interview with Ben Chasny here. Six Organs Of Admittance will be performing on Sunday 21st October, whilst Rangda will perform on Saturday 20th.
