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Baker's Dozen

Organs Of Ecstasy: Ben Chasny’s Favourite Albums
Ben Graham , June 14th, 2023 10:10

Questing experimental guitar hero Ben Chasny, aka Six Organs Of Admittance, tells Ben Graham about 13 records that influenced his playing and shaped his worldview, from psychedelic Japanese noise rock to American Primitive acoustic fingerpicking

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L – Holy Letters

This was a big influence on Six Organs at the beginning in terms of what acid folk could be or what acid folk meant, or that I might even describe myself as acid folk. I got into it because in the Forced Exposure catalogue that I bought it from, it said that it was the drummer for Fushitsusha. I loved Fushitsusha, I loved acid folk, so I thought, ‘This this must be perfect.’ And when I bought it, the original comes in a gatefold seven inch sleeve with a CD in one side and the seven-inch in the other, and Hiroyuki [Usui] put it out himself, so it just ticked all the boxes. Private press, drummer for Fushitsusha, acid folk, incredible packaging and most of all, the music is just so unique and beautiful and takes its own time. Really lysergic and flowing. And I mean, there's that one song where he just hits a chord, pauses for 30 seconds, then hits another chord.

It's almost bringing that Loren Connor style of the electric guitar into an acid folk setting. And again, just no record sounds like this. I think it's one of the greatest records ever put out. There are a few people on this list that I ended up working with, but that's because this is a list of people that are very important to me. And the scene is not so big that you're not gonna bump into people and meet people and stuff. It's very easy to say hey, we should work together or something. That’s how I did that August Born record with Hiroyuki. He's kind of like Richard Youngs in that he’s just an amazing and beautiful human being. I just feel very lucky to even know him, let alone have done music with him.