On the face of it, it would be hard to imagine an album further distant from The Hexadic System, the frenzy of noise that was the last offering from Six Organs of Admittance, back in February. How can the two possibly be related?
Both are, of course, the product of the impenetrable and complex random/not random process of composition Ben Chasny devised for himself. Equally, both are the product of Chasney himself, and by returning to the acoustic guitar for this counterpart album, he reaffirms his position as one of the understated guitar heroes of contemporary alternative rock.
On the one hand, ‘Hexadic II’ is, ostensibly, an acoustic folk album, and it certainly operates, on the face of it, within well-established folk parameters. It certainly contrasts with the wild, and often frenzied, impenetrable walls of noise its predecessor issued forth, being more ‘Metal Machine Music’ than anything, well, listenable.
Having failed to attend any of Ben’s lectures on how the system works, I can only assume that the seemingly infinite potentials and compositional variables it offers by means of ‘the random’ means that the virtual dice were thrown and landed very differently in the creation of this album, much in the same way that John Cage employed I Ching to create compositions that bore very little, if any, resemblance to one another.
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Perhaps becoming caught up on the process is to miss the point, at least from a listening perspective: after all, the listener isn’t the recipient of a process, but of is results. And so, the ultimate question is not ‘how has the process brought Six Organs here?’, but ‘is the new Six Organs album any good? And the answer to that is most definitely yes. Don’t wait for me to explain or dissect it: go listen.
Six Organs of Admittance Online
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