An original Hook & Hastings tracker-action (non-electric) pipe organ originally constructed in 1881 owns the entirety of this record. The chanting, reminiscent of what Native American and Indian chants I've heard bend space-time, revealing an ether of energy and ideas coursing beneath the visible spectrum. Performed live, this album sounds more like a ritual than a product; it is a distinct and meditative experience that pounds down the doors of the visceral and floods the extended world with a pure, white light.
Beta-lactam Ring
Beta-lactam's website provides an excellent and brief history of the Old Church's unique instrument. Installed in 1883 in Portland, OR, this mechanical pipe organ has seen multiple restorations since the 1960s, but was not satisfactorily restored until 1997. The instrument's voice, a soft and powerful bellow, has thankfully survived over 100 years to make this recording. I always enjoy hearing unique and strange instruments and though pipe organs are not difficult to find, one of this caliber, still resting in the church it was constructed in, is an apparently rare find. On top of that, its sound is distinct from many pipe organs I've heard, resonating with a wooden, hollow timbre unlike the tones generated by electric pipe organs I've had the pleasure of hearing.
Chao Organica in A Minor could properly be considered a historical document if it weren't for the unusual chants and didgeridoo-like echoes that spread across its belly. The album is split into two tracks: one over 20 minutes in length and the other over 40. Both tracks are undeniably minimalist in nature, utilizing nothing more than the organ and a solo vocal performance. As much of a treat as the organ is, the vocals are a key element to the performance, lending it a supernatural and religious tone appropriate to the environment it was recorded in. Given the right circumstances and frame of mind, it seems like that supernatural contact could've been made with the help of this performance. Each track generates slow, extended melodies. The focus is almost obviously on the textures that the vocals and the organ produce. It's hard not to think of Coil's Time Machines when listening, but the inclusion of the wordless chants adds a dimension to that comparison that renders it null and void. Far from sounding like an improvised performance, every minute of each track provides carefully constructed moments of brilliance.
It's difficult to imagine that this isn't an esoteric recording of a ritualistic performance meant to summon the will and power of every audience member. The music acts like a camera, focusing my thoughts and ideas into coherent wholes. It organizes moments and slows them down, making them visible, available for careful analysis and steady meditation. Around the 22 minute mark in the second, untitled track, near silence falls. A space is opened up for due consideration, for analysis and repose. It's a striking bit of silence that seems to last forever. As the track continues and the faintness hint of organic wind begins to creep over the album, a feeling of renewal washes over the music. It's one of those excellent silent moments in music, where the silence makes just as much difference as the music itself does. The only difference is that, as the album begins, a strange new element strikes me; there are now vocal samples bleeding through the hum of the organ. It is difficult to hear, even more difficult to understand, but it nearly dates the album. Suddenly there is a significance lent to the album.
I imagine a sepia toned desert and a plot of land occupied only by a church. The fear of the outside world crowding in around the congregation and a speaker in charge of exorcising all the negative aspects of what lay outside the fellowship's grasp. The album pulses to a silent end, leaving things uncertain, but somehow more bold. The grass and leaves outside look greener, the sky a deeper shade of blue. The world seems to resonate with the vibrations of the album's closing aura, removing this music from performance and fixing it in the realm of pure existence.
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