Music & Visions – projects selected by Giovanni Papalia + ThePT
Six Organs of Admittance is the project of Ben Chasny. Beginning as a solo endeavor, it now regularly features other musicians in concert and as guests on records. Original inspiration for the band came from wanting to merge the styles of fingerpicked acoustic guitar with more improvisational drone elements. A copy of Hans Peter Duerr’s Dreamtime book provided the early blueprint for the analogy of fingerpicked acoustic guitar as civilization vs. noise/drone as wilderness that was to dominate the first few records. The Six Organs sound has moved toward more electric styles through the years but the acoustic element is never too far away. Early records were recorded on a Tascam 424 mkII four-track and self-released on Ben’s own Pavilion label. In 2002 Six Organs hooked up with the label Holy Mountain, who released Dark Noontide.
A tour with the late great Jack Rose happened in 2000, as well as Ben’s move to Santa Cruz. It was there that he would begin hanging out and touring with (and eventually joining) the band Comets On Fire. Six Organs recordings continued to be made on the 4-track in Ben’s room resulting in the records For Octavio Paz and Compathia.
In 2003 Six Organs went into the studio for the first time and recorded School of the Flower. This record was notable for having drummer Chris Corsano (whom Ben would later form Rangda with) as well as being the first release with Chicago label Drag City.
Since then Six Organs has moved from city to city as well as touring across the USA and Europe many times, along with the occasional festival. One festival highlight was being invited by the band Neurosis to play their weekend of curation of Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland, in 2009… bio continues here
Wanda Koop is one of Canada’s most important and inventive contemporary artists. Her career spans over four decades and includes more than 50 major solo exhibitions, nationally and internationally. Most notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Winnipeg Art Gallery exhibited a comprehensive survey of her work in 2010-2011.
Koop is known for charting new directions in painting, pushing the boundaries of presentation and display with her monumental-scale painting installations, in which she incorporates poetic video and performance work. Her practice explores scenes of urbanization, industrialization, and robotic technology as it interfaces with the natural world, asking us to reconsider imagery that is delivered to us through both cultural history and contemporary broadcast media.
The National Gallery of Canada holds a major collection of her work. Other private and museum collections include the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, the Reykjavik Museum in Iceland, the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art in China, the Caldic Collection in the Netherlands, as well as the Bank of Montreal, and the Royal Bank of Canada.
Over the course of her career, Koop has been the recipient of numerous national and international honours. Most recently she was awarded a Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts for 2016. In 2006, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, in recognition of her outstanding lifetime achievement. Koop has also been honoured with the Queen’s Diamond and Golden Jubilee Medals, and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Winnipeg, the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and the University of Manitoba.
In 2011, she was the subject of a critically-acclaimed film titled “KOOP,” from Site Media Inc., directed by filmmaker Katherine Knight. Koop is also well-known for her community work and social activism. In 1998, she founded Art City, a storefront art-centre, bringing together world-class contemporary visual artists and Winnipeg’s inner-city youth to explore the creative process.
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