Owned since: 2011
Genre: American Primitivism
Where I bought it: At the release show
Year: 2011
Label/pressing: Self Published/Pavilion
I don’t talk a lot about the surroundings I spent most of my life in on this site for a couple of reasons (beside some fleeting comments). It’s not really something I do on purpose, but my home region isn’t terribly exciting to talk about in current events. One of those places where a cow being stuck on the train tracks is big local talk and we have like 2 local bars catering to the whole of this town. A strange mix of rural but also being surrounded by some of the biggest cities of the Netherlands that are at most 30 minutes by train. A region mostly known for its nature, WW II history and a lot of religious history to boot.
Mostly set in the edges of the forest that surround my town, you will find Mariakapels. These little chapels are field chapels that are made in the name of Maria, mother of Jesus Christ, and mostly are stuck to walking routes in the (formerly) very Catholic farm land. Most were built out by wealthy town folks to praise Maria or make an easy place for worship for those who couldn’t take the long pilgrimage to places like Lourdes. When you bike around my region you tend to run into them for sure beside the Jesus statues. Most of them are in a pretty OK state but they’re clearly from the past, the people that do upkeep for them are slowly stopping due to old age, it is an interesting development to see what the next 25 years will bring them. Some of them are on private grounds but most are roadside based.
In 2010 Incubate Festival did the Glocal project which was inviting musicians (I remember them being Six Organs, Dan Deacon and Peter Broderick) to projects related to the landscape around the city of Tilburg, which my town falls under. Deacon and Broderick went to work at an ecological farm to make their sets there and Six Organs Of Admittance’s Ben Chasny traveled through the whole of Noord-Brabant visiting Marie Kappelen with historian Paul Spapens to inspire a set on the festival. It’s honestly a perfect fit; Chasny’s more acoustic music is heavily influenced by Indian guitar raga and John Fahey’s American primitivism has a fragile edge to it related to the chapels. It is music to ponder about life and reflect, which is the main case why these chapels were built- as a point of reflection for travelers or people during their day. I missed the original show at the festival for a reason I can’t recall anymore but live recordings make up half this record while the other two songs were recorded at home by Chasny.
It’s an extremely serene record helped a lot by the live tracks being recorded in an echo filled church which gives the acoustic guitar some oddball percussion by Chasny’s strumming reverberating through the church. For the rest this is what you kind of expect from a record from Six Organs’ extensive output. It is less loud then his band record, less monotone then his masterpiece School of the Flower and might lack the finesse of most of his work, but makes up for the short period this was written and recorded in giving it a nearly improvised edge.
I bought this record at the release show which took place at the Ursulinenkapel. A large chapel near the city center of Tilburg surrounded by apartments, it was built in the early 20th century and feels strangely modern for a chapel. It has been out of use as a religious building for a while but is still used for weddings. Seats around 150 people and it was packed with Peter Broderick opening up for Six Organs with a set of songs he mostly wrote himself during this project. For sure not a normal live setting and one that is filled with echoes but adds wonderfully to both artists’ pretty minimal music.
Sloot’s Admittance: Music like this really feels like it was made in a church or a cavern, just a certain kind of echoing sadness. And people coughing really loud.