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Six Organs of Admittance School of the Flower Released in 2005 8.0/10 Styles Folk Post-rock Space-rock Song Highlights Saint Cloud Procession of Cherry Blossom Spirits School of the Flower |
Six Organs of Admittance supposedly have an extensive back-catalogue of hard-to-find, independently released albums and EPs, with this year's School of the Flower being their first album under indie super-label Drag City. I haven't heard any of those prior releases, but it's nice to know that they're out there, because School of the Flower is a strong enough album that I'm already interested in hearing more. The formula here is a mixture of traditional folk and post-rock, which is a fairly intriguing concept. The folk component is a very gentle affair, with rarely anything more than an acoustic guitar, with sparse touches of organ, for instrumentation. Vocals are almost completely absent, barring a couple of tracks, and the melodies are generally slow and meditative. These minimalist songs are then immersed in a wash of etherial backing effects. This is certainly the sort of thing you'd describe as a soundscape, but with the more simplistic music embedded in the complex whole, it should never really try the listener's patience. There's an occasional resemblence to classic folksters like Neil Young in effect, although the melodic string-picking of Iron and Wine is also an evident point of comparison. Most of all, though, School of the Flower reminds me of Young's Dead Man soundtrack. Both albums favour a surreal, ghostly approach to their sparse, guitar-led music. While Dead Man sounded stark and dangerous, however, School of the Flower sounds warm and inviting. Picking highlight songs is almost a moot point, as the first three tracks are almost inseparable, and several others dreamily flow into one another. Only the 13 minute long title track really sticks out, and with it's position around two-thirds of the way through, it acts as an epic centrepiece (albeit a little to the right of centre). Its hypnotic acoustic loops, layered over distorted electric guitar and chaotic percussion, give it a constantly building feeling (a la Godspeed You! Black Emperor), yet the song never takes off. Whether it should or not is arguable, as some would say a dramatic peak would liven the album's lazy progression. However, I believe any crescendo would feel a little too out of place, counteracting the otherworldly serenity that School of the Flower works to create. The thing that makes this a fairly important album is the new life it breathes into the post-rock genre. After space-rock groups like Sigur Ros and Godspeed made post-rock the "it-genre" of the late 90s and early 00s, the level of interest dropped dramatically over the last 3 years. Even It's All Around You by post-rock granddaddies Totoise couldn't get a positive review last year. Given that the freak-folk movement seems to be the new it-genre of the present, its amalgamation can only give post-rock a much needed boost. School of the Flower is one of 2005's better releases so far, and comes loaded with a fresh and effective gimmick. I'd highly recommended it to fans of either folk or post-rock, although it's the sort of thing that just about anyone can enjoy. |