Most kids on Halloween night opt for an array of costumes devoted to ghosts and goblins, spooks and skeletons. But as if to preempt their future alternative lifestyles, Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson went with, respectively, a matchbox outfit and a robot get-up. What’s really freaky is that both boys were photographed in their respective garbs while standing on flagstones before a conifer tree. Thousands of miles apart.
In later years, Chasny would become the force behind Six Organs Of Admittance and their pastoral psychedelics. He also gardens a bit, describing it as one long ritual throughout the seasons. Tomlinson went on to release albums as Voice Of The Seven Woods, with his 2007 outing under that name a real classic of mystic overtones and spicy rhythms. The men first met when Chasny toured England and visited Tomlinson in Todmorden, where the aforementioned Halloween photos came to light, signifying they must surely work together.
Recorded at home in Todmorden, there’s a warming modesty about this informal yet devotional set of tunes. The guitar strings don’t sound pingingly bright and new, so we get a sense of old friends at ease, simply picking up their instruments and playing. Open tunings are clearly in use here with chords that, weirdly, sound neither major nor minor.
“i”, with its humble lowercase, opens the album on tentative pickings and strums as if the two are using this first cut as an icebreaker, a face-to-face after all the planning. That said, the piece sets an aura for what follows where all is sweetness, rigour and sustain.
“Wait For Low Tide” has a mantra-like motif played in harmony, a soft symphony. Across nine minutes, it builds the kind of repose one gains from staring at lapping waves, a rushing peace flowing inside. It’s also a reminder of how great a spiritual tool the guitar can be.
A flurry of notes scurry back and forth on “Waking Of Insects”, a busy piece that feels geometric in construction, composed of clear cycles. The brief “Ellipse For The Declining Sun” then finds the two reflecting rays of sound back at each other in a deft embrace. Next up, a sea change occurs when “Paths Of Ocean Currents And Wind Belts” turns us towards this duo’s penchant for the esoteric. For sixteen minutes, they use tape-loops and heck knows what else, starting with a primeval drone, a glowing boom, like the echoes of an ancient bell meditation. We hear what could be a bagpipe or organ pipe deflating, a persistent ringing, whistling and shimmering. The boundaries soon blur between human-made sound and electronic sonority. And there’s a further ambiguity as the peaceful can turn desolate depending on one’s mood. Are we isolated in spatial vastness here or cocooned from a hostile world?
Suitably prayerful, the closing cut “ii” returns to guitars, with some harp-like flourishes and each player leaving space for the other to fill. Which rather sums up the generosity of spirit throughout Waves. All tracks were done in one take, with the titles translated from the Chinese book The Dream Pool Essays, first published in 1088 AD. Of the recording process, Chasny says, “We hiked around the countryside, climbed into church bell towers, drank delicious beer on sunny afternoons and had fantastic dinners. I really had the best time in the world. I think all of that wound up in the music”. He’s right, for Chasny and Tomlinson have made an album in which we feel the warm vibrations of their dreams and visions.
Pre-Order via Bandcamp: https://voixrecords.bandcamp.com/album/waves