Just caught the last half tune from local legend Bloom. She is in the twilight of a cult career of the freak folk variety. Her early aughts records with downtown guitarist Loren Connors are fantastic. Her childlike vocal style allows for complex simple tunes, like the late great Daniel Johnston.
Bhutanese-born, Asheville NC resident, Dorji is an experimental guitarist. He takes the stage with an acoustic guitar and a briefcase of effects pedals and boxes at his feet. The music starts in a Fahey-esque style with repetitive picking and looping. The sound was wide and expansive, making me think of William Tyler or early Pat Metheny. He then switched to some angular avant garde picking layered on a looped backdrop. Growing up in Bhutan, Dorji relied on bootleg cassettes from China to learn the ways and means of western music. The effects pedals stretched the sound, he poked at one like it was a vending machine failing to give change. He puts the guitar down and picks up what looks like a book, made from wood. On the “cover” are 8-10 knobs that he twiddles along with the briefcase. The sound is not folk or jazz, but some kind of extraterrestrial mixture of the two. Dorji’s set was one long song that twisted and turned for 40 minutes. Look at his output on bandcamp and you’ll see a prolific collaborator with truly original music.
Six Organs of Admittance is the guitarist Ben Chasny. Chasny has been making music since the 90s, much of which is solo or group settings on the fabulous Drag City label. He does time with Rangda, a psych folk supergroup with Chris Corsano and Sir Richard Bishop. Ben is an amazing picker and, like Dorji, his music is not easily categorized. Relying less on effects, Chasny achieved his sound with open tuning and repetitive passages. His breathy psych vocals are secondary but necessary to give him his singular sound. Slim crowd for these three original artists.
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