Pitchfork

To those familiar with the music of Six Organs of Admittance in its more song-driven incarnations, the sprawl of The Manifestation will come as a surprise. Originally appearing in 2000 as a one-sided vinyl release, it's now manifest in the form of a two-song CD single. The first track is a reissue of the original music, the second new material; both are 22-minute pieces with their thematic attention turned toward the heavenly bodies that govern our lives. That's right-- they're about the cast of "The O.C."

No, sorry, they're about our solar system. The title track is an ode to the sun in the body of a raga-inspired epic-- a form suited to its topic, as the movement of melodic notes around an established tonic conjures images of planets rotating around the star. Ben Chasny's acoustic guitar mimics the ringing metallic tone and microtonal bends of a sitar, with tabla-style hand drums in the background. The drone is partly sustained by a rhythmically plucked mouth harp, which bends and expands to paint a shimmering, warped surface; Chasny's use of non-western scales, as well as the general aura of mysticism maintained throughout, evoke ritualistic sun-worship.

The piece begins with a rumbling incantation, falling into a steady groove. On top enters Chasny's vocal line, unencumbered by any time signature, and layered with a female spoken word part in the style of Gong. About 12 minutes in, the piece is overtaken by a formless, atmospheric drone of the sort early Tangerine Dream used to evoke the vastness and slow unfolding of large-scale cosmic events. A slowly rotating LFO synth replaces the rhythmic oscillations of the mouth harp, and high, metallic string tones fall. In its third section, the piece lands into a melancholy return with a reestablished tonic and some layered guitar/autoharp picking.

"The Six Stations" is a more subdued work. It's ideologically based in The Music of the Spheres, the ancient Greek concept (popular amongst romantics throughout the ages) that harmonic ratios evident in intervals pleasing to the human ear have counterparts in relative interplanetary distances and bodies. Chasny's original vinyl release of The Manifestation contained an etching of the sun by Mike Mills on its non-playing side; here, Chasny aurally recreates that side by making the "drone" of this piece the sounds of a record needle playing over Mills' etching. Thus, Chasny pays homage to his original "side B," and also lays down a sonic representation of the sun upon which the other musical "planets" can interact. Of course, none of this is evident in the recording itself, meaning that many listeners will hear what seems mainly to be an intentional obfuscation of the music.

The amplified vinyl clicks and pops combined with Chasny's guitar work, plucked in grouped torrents of notes, initially give the impression of a modern piece of cut 'n' paste laptop collage. Mercury and Venus are represented by acoustic jams in two different keys and scales, before an unaccompanied monologue from David Tibet divides the piece with its depiction of Earth. From there, the planetary divisions are a bit more vague-- Chasny engages in some more major-key meanderings before segueing into a pentatonic scale, his guitar now taking on the characteristics of a Koto, backed by the sound of muted rain and distant thunder. Though it's an interesting journey in light of its Sun Ra-style theoretical basis, its lack of attention to aesthetic execution makes it a less engaging listen.

The Manifestation, for better or worse, can be described in terms of trends from 30-40 years ago. Its basis in Indian music points to the Ravi Shankar influence that, coinciding with the proliferation of psychedelics, prompted many American and European artists to experiment with new scales, tones, and song lengths. And, in the same way that evoking medieval chant or century-old blues necessarily conjures a sort of historical exoticism, The Manifestation's success is partly due to its contextual throwback to a mysticism and wonder foreign to modern counterculture.

What makes this recording successful, and allows it to be captivating and transformative, is its obvious sincerity. There's value in the wisdom of the now burnt-out, and The Manifestation's best moments are borne of that spirit. Chasny's wide thematic scope is refreshing in a musical landscape dominated by personal soul-bearing. Our relationship to the extremes of the outer world deserves as much attention as do the subtleties of the psyche, and extended pieces here set a frame for listeners to consider the space between themselves and the vast beyond.