Six Organs Of Admittance
Rtz

Here is why I didn't want to make a list of the best albums of 2009.

This one (January, Drag City), slipped away from me. I managed to forget it in every context, from crowded bulletin boards to friendly private conversations, and I feel guilty, I feel damn guilty, because it's always unpleasant to forget someone. Giving moments of fame to the most visible or the usual suspects or to those who have the stroke of luck to cross your mind at that moment, only to then not mention who truly left something with you, thus missing out on the beauty of these topics, the variety.

Sure, then you happen to listen to it again and ponder why, and the situation starts to take a different turn. It's not an album like others, it’s another level, a distant vision. "Rtz" is not music, it's not entertainment, it's an atmosphere. I'm not even sure if I managed to get to the end or if I understood it, maybe that's exactly why it has graced me, because every time I discover something new, and I know it's a story that will never end, you can't just digest about two hours of guitars fading in and out, overlapping. And Ben Chasny's voice here is nothing but a soft whirr. The combination of these simple elements (recorded at home) ordered by improvised percussion with the first object found next to the four-track creates a lysergic weave that completely changes the situation around you, catapulting you directly to the arid lands between Mexico and Baja California.

Chasny with "Rtz" has laid bare his sacred intimacy.

"For me there is only the journey on paths that have a heart.
There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to cross it in its entirety.
There I travel looking, looking, breathlessly."
                                                                    Don Juan

And here, there's so much heart.