Bargain On Rangda Melts

Rangda are back! The face-melting trio (Comets On Fire/Six Organs Of Admittance's Ben Chasny, Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop, drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano) are releasing another slab of frenetic, feverish instrumental rock February next year in The Heretic's Bargain (again through Drag City), and 'To Melt The Moon' is the first salvo. It's a warped Mexican Western jam smothered in macho muscularity, stretched sinew and spasmodic Spaghetti stand-offs. Whenever these guys get in the ring, tightly calibrated carnage ensues. The album has a song called 'Spiro Agnew' and the closing track goes for nineteen minutes. Mind blown already! There is no one out there like this. Pre-order the record here.

ANOTHER Six Organs Of Admittance Album? Well I Never...

Six Organs Of Admittance, AKA Ben Chasny, pretty much fits the epitome of the term "prolific", having released over a dozen full releases and countless others when collaborations and split records are concerned, with the sounds crossing the thresholds of avant-folk, veering like an unpredictible pendulum from guitar panache to guitar ambience to guitar drone without warning. Dont even get me started on his other work, most notably the ever-missed Comets On Fire and last year's surprise behemoth Rangda (False Flag is an album that still energises and excites me today...)

Yet it is only in the past eighteen or so months that I can safely say that I have been a SOA fan. I guess I was always wanting Chasny to bust my skull open like his best Comets... work, without being patient enough to delve into his other sonic waters. But I have explored every Drag City release he has thrown out (five since 2005), and his latest, Asleep On The Floodplain, is a great album.

Occasionally there are lyrics (Hold But Let Go, River Of My Youth) but the lyricism is in the guitarwork, with Chasny stepping out and proclaiming his intent - or lack of it. For he is still as frustratingly difficult to pin down stylistically as ever - yet he has honed tracks that exude confidence and bravado. This isnt someone trying out a few styles to find out which one fits - this is someone whose tastes may change from day to day, but has the perfect soundtrack for such flights of fancy. And then there is Sword and Leviathan - its what I love about music, the drone, the psych, the epicness, the virtuousity...

Dont worry about trying to pigeonhole Chasny - just let him BE.

Six Organs of Admittance - Hold But Let Go Six Organs Of Admittance - Sword And Leviathan

Baby-eating radness

Do not go to Bali.

Wow, a rather strong statement to make, even if Sonic Masala does not have the clout to bring down the entire Indonesian tourism industry...yet...

But the statement is not meant to be literal. For no one in the world is safe from Rangda, the new collective 'supergroup' that is eviscerating eardrums everywhere via their latest LP, False Flag. Made up of Comets On Fire/Six Organs of Admittance dynamo Ben Chasny, percussion master Chris Corsano and Sir Richard Bishop (of Arizona noise wizard trippers Sun City Girls), Rangda (monikered after the Balinese witch doctor both reviled and adored for her chaotic veagence - see, I was leading somewhere with all this) are a full throttled noisefest, sludging guitar rock of monumental proportions. And they are not trying to paint their wagon in any other fashion - from their own name to song titles such as 'Bull Lore', 'Fist Family' and 'Serrated Edges', these boys are here to tear your being to the ground and devour the child within. Seriously scary stuff then - and immensely satisfying.

But that little grab of words doesn't do False Flag justice. Ive had it in my possession for over a week now, and every time I listen to it I am drawn more and more to it. Its not just the volcanic fury inherent in every bludgeoning sound that makes me salivate - it is the innate intricacy, the soul that writhes within each track, that is equally if not so more enchanting. It is a fucking awesome record, especially for the incendiary drumming of Corsano - what a fucking god! - so imagine catching them live? It would have you throwing your own child into the blender just to appease them.

False Flag is out through Drag City now. They played in London last Thursday, same night as Liars, Male Bonding and my book launch. Suffice to say that last Thursday was not particularly fair to all those bands, what with the hordes of avid readers keen to get their mitts on my grubby novella - but hopefully Rangda will (dis)grace us with their presence in the very near future - including the Godspeed You Black Emperor-curated ATP in December...

Rangda - Bull Lore
Rangda - Serrated Edges