'11 - Six Organs of Admittance - Asleep on the Floodplain Six Organs of Admittance - Asleep on the Floodplain
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Fighting the injustices of lossy audio I bring you another installment of lossless audio.
Artist.................: Six Organs of Admittance
Album................: Asleep on the Floodplain
Genre................: Alt-Folk
Source...............: CD
Year..................: 2011
Ripper................: NMR
Codec.................: Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
Version...............: FLAC 1.2.1 20070917
Quality................: Lossless, (avg. bitrate: 693kb/s)
Channels.............: Stereo / 44100 HZ / 16 Bit
Tags...................: VorbisComment
Included..............: XLD Rip w/ Log, M3U
Covers................: Front
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2011 album from this Alt-Folk act led by guitarist Ben Chasny. After 2009's
sonically dense Luminous Night, Ben returned to the familiar environs of home
recording to sculpt and assemble this batch of jams, freeing himself from the
restrictions and deadlines studios might normally impose upon a song. Thus
creating a living nest in which this material could grow and breathe, the album
took longer to complete but sounds effortless and bright with light. Much of
Asleep On The Floodplain draws on imagery from Chasny's youth, a time
spent in Elk River.
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For over a decade, Ben Chasny has been releasing records under the Six
Organs of Admittance banner at the rate of roughly one a year. While
thematically they all seem to hold at their core a brooding, often desolate
world view, musically they stretched their American primitive folk roots to the
limits, and more often than not, broke them. Chasny's imagination usually
hangs out at the murky, often blurry crossroads of deep Americana, Middle
Eastern, and Asian drone and chant modalities that he articulates beautifully
on guitars, harmoniums, with his understated vocals, and whatever else he
decides to toss into the mix. Asleep on the Floodplain is a ten-song affair
recorded between 2007 and 2010 at his homes in Seattle and San Francisco.
Chasny plays all the instruments: guitars (mostly acoustic), sparsely used
analog synths, harmoniums, and EFX. His acoustic guitar playing is dominant,
delicately weaving throughout his carefully articulated melodies and wide-
open harmonies; his singing voice deliberately submits to the guitar's
authority, technically and aesthetically. The gorgeous, droning opener
"Above a Desert I've Never Seen" and "Poppies" are intricate solo pieces for
acoustic guitar; the tactile sounds of hands squeaking on strings invite the
listener into them by way of seeming proximity to the closeness of that
sound. "Light of the Light," which follows, is a quiet, beautifully spiritual song
where Chasny duets with himself; its instrumental bridge is among the
loveliest things he's composed. "Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us" is an organ-
haunted love song that reveals a new vulnerability in his writing. "S/Word and
Leviathan," the album's longest cut, was inspired by the work of the
"Process" theologian Catherine Keller. The six- and 12-string guitars engage
one another in an insanely intricate repetitive pattern as Chasny's voice
appears and vanishes inside the ether at the margins. Synths, vocal chants,
and horn sounds are added in droning layers until his voice returns near the
end to pose spiritual questions as statements; his electric guitar swoops and
swirls alongside an organ to close it out on an apocalyptically redemptive
note. The closer, "Dawn, Running Home," represents the place of return;
guitars, harmonium, and ambient sounds are an in-kind affirmative response
to the loneliness and desolation of the album's opening cut, with Chasny's
falsetto and overdubbed vocal choruses underscoring it. Asleep on the
Floodplain stands as a brilliantly constructed bridge between SOOA's For
Octavio Paz and Sun Awakens, yet moves deftly and pronouncedly forward
into previously uncharted terrain. ~ Thom Jurek
The Wire (p.56) - "There's a sparse but fluid lyricism to Chasny's tumbling,
post-Takoma guitar style..."
Q (Magazine) (p.115) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Here he returns to a home studio
hoping to free up time and space, an ambition achieved with bells on....Captivating."
Uncut (magazine) (p.92) - 4 stars out of 5 - "'S/Word And Leviathan' hinges
around a repetitive, scratchy banjo, building to a powerful crescendo with a
violent bust of buzzing electric guitar."
*** Recommended mcm ***
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1. (00:05:02) Six Organs of Admittance - Above A Desert I've Never Seen
2. (00:02:49) Six Organs of Admittance - Light of the Light
3. (00:03:32) Six Organs of Admittance - Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us
4. (00:01:01) Six Organs of Admittance - Saint of Fishermen
5. (00:04:21) Six Organs of Admittance - Hold But Let Go
6. (00:05:34) Six Organs of Admittance - River Of My Youth
7. (00:01:00) Six Organs of Admittance - Poppies
8. (00:12:25) Six Organs of Admittance - S/Word and Leviathan
9. (00:02:57) Six Organs of Admittance - A New Name On An Old Cement Bridge
10. (00:05:04) Six Organs of Admittance - Dawn, Running Home
Playing Time.........: 00:43:46
Total Size...........: 233.00 MB (FLAC)
Dynamic Range (DR)
Analyzed: Six Organs of Admittance / Asleep on the Floodplain
Number of tracks: 10
Codec: FLAC
Official DR value: DR8
