FULL BUCK MOON (25 July 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BLACKSHAW JAMES

LOST PRAYERS AND MOTIONLESS DANCES


Original Issue: 2005 Digitalis (digi008) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1. Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances

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from Jazzloft:

An absolutely monumental recording, Lost Prayers and Motionless Dances re-examines many of the themes that were explored on Celeste and distills them into one brilliant 35-minute composition that is full of excitement and surprise. The piece begins with a harmonium drone and acoustic 12-string, tuned to the guitar-unfriendly C-F-C-F-C-F (I can't find any examples of this tuning being used elsewhere) and unfolds beautifully. Blackshaw moves effortlessly from Takoma-inspired picking into electroacoustic improvisation and concludes with 12-string, harmonium and ride cymbal falling into a blissed-out circular folk groove that is absolutely infectious.

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from Boomkat:

'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only revealing the guitar part - inevitably the ace up Blackshaw's sleeve - after a good eight minutes of toying with you. Thereafter, Blackshaw's fluency with Eastern modes and sitar-like figures becomes the central attraction, dressing the piece in an enormously elaborate display of fingerpicking, but eventually it all melts away into a state of drone, leaving only echoes, jangling bells and radio static. It's one of Blackshaw's more abstract moments, but soon the guitar returns for a coda at a more stately pace, supported by thudding kick drum, drawing the piece to a suitably regal close.

THULE MOON (traditional musick)

RENBOURN JOHN

THE LADY AND THE UNICORN

Original Issue: 1969 Transatlantic (TRA224)

Reissue: 2003 Castle Music (CMRCD 625) Buy it here

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

I genuinely LOVE this album!

I've thousands of CDs but (the Gods only know why) I keep on returning to this intimate jewel one againg...and again...and again...

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1 Trotto 0.40/ Saltarello 1.53
2 Lamento Di Tristan 1.58 / La Rotta 0.55
3 Veri Floris 0.44 / Triple Ballade 2.00
4 Bransle Gay 1.13 / Bransle De Bourgogne 1.34
5 Alman 1.25 / Melancholy Galliard 2.47
6 Sarabande 2.41
7 The Lady And The Unicorn 3.21
8 My Johnny Was A Shoemaker 4.16 / Westron Wynde 1.25 / Scarborough Fair 7.22

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from Liner Notes:

This record contains a variety of instrumental pieces including medieval music, folk tunes and early classical music. The oldest are probably the English dance tune 'Trotto' and the Italian 'Saltarello', to which I have added a drone accompaniment, tuning the guitar to DGDGCD.

'Lamento di Tristan' and 'La Rotta' are fourteenth century Italian pieces played originally on vielle. They too are without harmony but have the tune doubled either on sitar or glockenspiel.

The three part conductus 'Veri Floris', composed during the Notre Dame period, is a setting for the words 'Under the figure of the true flower which the pure root produced, the loving devotion of our clergy has made a mystical flower constructing an allegorical meaning beyond ordinary useage from the nature of a flower".

This is followed by the triple ballade 'Sancuer-Armordolens-Dameparvous' of Guillaume de Machaut.

'Bransle Gay' and 'Bransle de Bourgogne' are from the danceries of Claude Gervaise, composed in about 1550. The first is played on solo guitar but the second uses flute, fiddle and has a second guitar line added. The anonymous 'Alman' is taken from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and is followed by 'Melancholy Galliard' by the English lutanist John Dowland. The sequence concludes with the 'Sarabande' in B Minor by J. S. Bach.

The album ends with two short guitar pieces, 'The Lady And The Unicorn' and an arrangement of the sixteenth century song 'Westron Wynde', and arrangements for flute, viola and guitar of two folk songs: 'My Johnny Was A Shoemaker' and 'Scarborough Fair'.

I have not presumed to reproduce early music as it would originally have been played, but hope nevertheless that the qualities of the music can be enjoyed, though interpreted on more recent instruments.

John Renbourn plays guitars and sitar, Terry Cox plays hand-drums and glockenspiel, Don Harper plays viola, Lea Nicholson plays concertina, Tony Roberts and Ray Warleigh play flute and Dave Swarbrick plays violin.

BLUE MOON (musick by request)

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE

LIVE KFJC 2000 AD

Original Issue: 2007 Private Release (No Number; Limited Edition European Tour Disc)

Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

1 Journey Through Sankuan Pass (8:01)
2 Sum Of All Heaven > Hollow Light, Severed Sun (7:34)
3 Dead Flowers (3:53)
4 All That They Fear (6:52)
5 Messenger > Tuning (2:43)
6 Lament For Summer > Tuning (8:13)
7 Khidr And The Fountain (7:36)

Biography from Drag City:

Six Organs of Admittance is the music of one man — Ben Chasny, along with whomever he ropes in for recording sessions and shows. Sometimes nobody’s there with him, depending on his mood. And that’s alright too.

This one-man band started in 1998 when Ben self-released his first LP in an edition of 400, little dreaming that one day Six Organs of Admittance would sell 59 times that many. It was just something that happened.

Over the years, Six Organs of Admittance has been released on a variety of labels, most notably Holy Mountain. During this time, Six Organs of Admittance became one of the most influential sounds in the underworld with albums such as Dust and Chimes, Dark Noontide and Compathia.

The Six Organs method paired acoustic sounds — guitar, voices, percussions — with electric sounds — guitar and who knows?!? — in a fashion that produced not quite songs, but not quite jams, either. Further, it was vivid and hazy at the same time. It made people think of roots and folk music and psychedelia and noise all at once, and so people were thrilled in a confused sort of way. Nobody knew at the time that this was only the beginning.

In 2005, Ben found a home at Drag City and released the landmark album, School of the Flower. Free jazz ninja drum master Chris Corsano joined Ben for the session and the results were a perfect blend of melody, minimalism, out-folk groove and noise. This version of Six Organs of Admittance toured, getting much applause along the road. At year’s end, School of the Flower landed on many critic’s best-of lists in magazines including Mojo, Wire, Magnet and a shit-ton of others. Ben has also played in and recorded with Comets on Fire, Current 93, Badgerlore, and August Born.

2006 saw a new morning: the release of The Sun Awakens, which featured the darkest, most feedbackdrenched, cult-chanting, completely beautiful music ever released by Six Organs of Admittance. Whether or not people want twenty-four minutes of drone or not, that doesn’t mean Six Organs isn’t going to give it to them. Chasny also wrote music for Current 93’s critically-endorsed album Black Ships Ate The Sky, toured around the U.S. and Europe in the band of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (and had a great time) and finally took it to Russia (and played there!) as Six Organs of Admittance. Squeezing one last band into the winter of 2006, Ben formed the guitar-assault trio Basalt Fingers with Brian Sullivan of Mouthus and Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Markers.

2007: Ben’s taking a break from all his other projects to concentrate fully on Six Organs of Admittance and write the record he always wanted — Shelter From the Ash. Beyond a culmination of the very best that Six Organs of Admittance has ever offered, from
minimalist/surrealist sound incantations to pounding twilight mountain-ascending guitar affirmations to ruminations on love in the time of war and death and the end of the world, this is the Six Organs record that Ben has been wanting to release from the very beginning.
Six Organs of Admittance will be playing free shows on the west coast at the end of 2007, to be followed by a full tour of shows played for money in early 2008. Get ready — it will be well worth it.