Ben Chasny is one of the more prolific musicians of the last decade. He's released one or two albums each year since 1998 under his Six Organs of Admittance banner, plus a bunch of EPs, one-offs, and 7"s, and because that didn't keep him busy enough, he's also worked with Comets on Fire, Badgerlore, and Current 93. It could be argued that he's done more than anyone to establish, develop, and fuel this whole modern freak-folk thing, even if his profile has never risen as high as some of his peers'.
Luminous Night continues Chasny's association with Chicago's estimable Drag City label, and it's something of a summary record, demonstrating most of the range he's shown over the years, from pretty acoustic guitar ramblings to ambient noodling, droning psychedelic horrors, acid folk tunes, and rumbling noise. It's heaviest on the middle three and has an overall dirge-like quality that wears a bit thin at times. The record opens with a fake-out of gorgeous acoustic plucking on "Actaeon's Fall (Against the Hounds)", a sound that harks back to School of the Flower. This is joined by jazzy flute and an even prettier surfed-out guitar before everything stops for a breath and comes back in on a decidedly more medieval note, the flute joining a viola on a positively ancient-sounding melody that occasionally lapses back into surf-jazz for a couple seconds.
Taken in the context of the whole album, "Actaeon's Fall" plays something like a palate cleanser for the extended exercise in existential dread that follows. Chasny's oddly deadpan, almost British-accented voice makes a good instrument for brooding, and he almost makes a point of separating his brand of acid folk from his hippie forebears by confronting his personal failings head-on, declaring, "I'm a vengeful man," on "Anesthesia" as harshly droning guitars crowd in around him. He wraps himself in thoughts of death on "Ursa Minor", singing, "Love can't keep death at bay/ Good people dying everywhere/ When shadow's your doctor the price you pay/ Is asking if god is even there."
Chasny is careful to cut through the pallor of the densest tracks with small splashes of color, like the tabla that drives "Bar-Nasha" or the piano that wafts through the electronic haze of "Cover Your Wounds With the Sky". Eyvind Kang leads "River of Heaven" with a haunting viola solo played in a style that sounds half European Renaissance and half Syrian. Genuinely haunting moments like that forgive some of the album's more egregious indulgences in drifting noise and intentional obfuscation (see the brown guitar squall in the middle of "Enemies Before the Light"). But really, half the fun of Six Organs is hearing Chasny get away with being over-the-top on the strength of his sheer talent. Luminous Night doesn't challenge School of the Flower or The Sun Awakens for Six Organs' best albums, but it is a solid addition to a big catalog that gets more interesting all the time.
