Six Organs of Admittance

Six Organs of Admittance is the project of Ben Chasny. Original inspiration for the band came from wanting to merge the styles of finger style acoustic guitar with more improvisational drone elements. A copy of Hans Peter Duerr’s Dreamtime book (a gift from Ben’s friend Rob Fisk) provided the early blueprint for the analogy of finger style = civilization vs. noise = wilderness that was to dominate the first few releases. Early records were recorded on a Tascam 424 mkII four-track and self released while Ben still lived in Humboldt County. Eventually Six Organs hooked up with the label Holy Mountain, who reissued the first two records and released the third, Dark Noontide.

A tour with the late Jack Rose happened in 2000, as well as Ben’s move to Santa Cruz, where he would begin fraternizing with (and eventually joining) the band Comets On Fire. Six Organs recordings continued to be made in Santa Cruz on the 4-track in Ben’s basement bedroom and resulted two releases, For Octavio Paz and Compathia.

In 2004, Six Organs went into the studio for the first time and recorded the record School of the Flower. This record was notable for having drummer Chris Corsano (whom Ben would later form Rangda with), as well as being the first record in a long term relationship with Chicago indie label Drag City.

Since then, Six Organs has moved from one city to the next as well as touring across the USA and Europe many times, along with the occasional festival. One highlight was being invited by the band Neurosis to play their weekend of curation of Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland, in 2009.

Tilburg seems to be friendly to Six Organs as the project was  invited back in 2011 to participate in a 2 week artist residency to travel and draw inspiration for music from the local chapels of the Virgin Mary that dot the southern Netherlands countryside. The end result was the Maria Chapel LP, which was recorded from a live performance in a Church in Tilburg.

In 2015, Six Organs created the Hexadic System, which Wire Magazine described as a”semi-occult algorithmic approach to musical composition.” Two Six Organs records were released using the system and a third record was released compiling songs that other bands had made using the system. More details on the system can be found on this website.

Six Organs of Admittance continues to tour and release records on Drag City, the latest record being 2024’s Time is Glass.