Six Organs of Admittance is one man--Ben Chasny--and whoever he gets to come along for the ride. Shelter From the Ash, Chasny's ninth album under the Six Organs name (out today), features contributions from his Comets on Fire bandmate Noel Harmonson, Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Markers, and Superwolf/Zwan's Matt Sweeney. The album is a freak-folk magnum opus, full of well-restrained improvisations and fluid ruminations, considered and varied instrumentation (electric, electro, and acoustic), hypnotic vocals, and genre-melding that runs the spectrum from slowcore to psych rock and everything in between. For the time being, Chasny's doing a series of solo Six Organs of Admittance in-store dates on the West Coast before touring all proper-like come early 2008. So expect less weirdo post-folk noise and more intensive finger-picking (see above). He hits Seattle on Thanksgiving Eve for a free in-store at Sonic Boom Capitol Hill. This is your only chance to see Chasny before (gulp) next year. Like you've got a reason to stay in on a four-day weekend. more ›

Lovely and melancholy Twiggy lookalike El Perro Del Mar (née Sarah Assbring) sings about parties and candy like she's about to place a call to the suicide hotline. Alright, it's not quite that depressing, but she's able to make her 60s girl group harmonies and "shoo-bee-doos" sound downright despondent, and that takes a special Debbie Downer-ability. How very Swedish. Of course, we say all of the above in the nicest possible way. Her poppy sadness is really quite pleasant. more ›

Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these were a few of our favorite things, at least in terms of live music during the past year. more ›