Hola dear Devendra-adoring vinyl lovers! You no longer have to feel left out in the cold while others around you enjoy Mr. Banhart's music on cd because Young God has released his two most recent albums together (as they were meant to be!) as a double record set in a gatefold sleeve. If you're memory need refreshing, here's what we said about Rejoicing In The Hands album a little under a year ago:
Since the release of his evocative debut album Oh Me Oh My..., Devendra Banhart has deservedly catapulted to the status of an indie-rock icon. The critical acclaim for Banhart's work is based on the merits of his spectacular songwriting and uncanny ability to channel an incredible spectrum of emotional resonance. However, much of that success is also due to the hard work and dedication of Young God's bossman Michael Gira. The former Swan and current Angel Of Light has taken Banhart under his wing as his apprentice and has boldly asserted (and nurtured) Banhart's brilliance, majesty, and genius. His hard work has certainly paid off as almost every media outlet has sung Banhart's praises; but even so it was quite bizarre to hear Banhart's wavering croon on NPR's Morning Edition many moons ago.
Rejoicing In The Hands is Banhart's second proper album, following the short Black Babies UK EP which delved further into his piles of early 4-track recordings. For this new album, Gira took Banhart into a studio (which was located in an appropriately antique Southern home on the Georgia / Alabama border) and provided him with plenty of resources to flesh out his songs. In many ways, Rejoicing In The Hands follows the same strategy that Sub Pop employed for Iron & Wine's second album Our Endless Numbered Days: take one fantastic songwriter who made a great album of 4-track recordings, put him in the studio with some sympathetic musicians, and watch the magic happen. Thus, Rejoicing In The Hands has considerably more polish than its predecessor; and perhaps not surprisingly, the songs themselves are less dangerous, rabid, and self-consumed. Yet, the taming of Mr. Banhart is a relative process, as his work still invokes a mysticism of the unconscious through his complex metanyms and obtuse wordplay. His voice -- an eccentric hybrid of Marc Bolan, Karen Dalton, and Vashti Bunyan (who sings a duet alongside Banhart on this record!) -- continues to waver through stream of consciousness lyrics about his teeth, his beard, geographic love affairs, insects, Elvis, and other more likely subject matters like sex and death. Musically, these are delicate folk arrangements centered around his elliptical finger picking which is occasionally accompanied by some of Gira's fellow musicians from Angels of Light. All in all, Rejoicing In The Hands is a rousing success that will surely make Banhart the folk medium for his generation. Highly recommended.
And this is what we had to say about the cd version of Nino Rojo in September '04:
From the promise of a Banhartian Spring we find a Banhartian Autumn with a companion piece to Rejoicing In The Hands, Nino Rojo. This album, equally as stunning, features 16 songs assembled from 57 tracks recorded with Banhart mentor Michael Gira in Atlanta (see our review of Rejoicing for more info on the recording and production). Truly some of his most captivating and achingly beautiful songs to date with more elaborate finger-picked guitarwork and fleshed out backing vocals on songs such as the glistening "Owl Eyes" and the album closer "Electric Heart". One of our most favorite tracks, "At The Hop", is co-written by frequent Banhart collaborator Andy Cabic (Vetiver, Tussle). The enhancement of this enhanced-cd features a video for this song. Like its companion, Nino Rojo offers a Devendra Banhart with more polish, more freedom of movement and a little looser from the grip of self-awareness -- making for a more cohesive but no less eccentric and magical album.
These seem to be going fast, not sure how limited it is...
Well, the folk may be less present, but the freak is still going strong as ever. And why shouldn't he be when he's the charmed breather of life into this strange Topanga Canyon cocktail party. No, Neil Young couldn't make it, neither could Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, or any of the usual suspects you might expect from ground zero of the west coast singer-songwriter renaissance in the seventies. Instead Devendra and cohorts with their ever-changing band names (Hairy Fairy, Navajo Gospel, White Rainbow Moccassin Woman, and lately The Spiritual Boner) have imported some remarkably far-flung musical touch-stones. From Vegas Elvis to Caetano Veloso to J.J. Cale. Throw in a little Byrds with a pinch of Led Zeppelin, add some Lover's Rock, some Post-Tropicalia, a bit of gender-bending, a taste of gospel and even a hint of Al Jolson mixed with Allan Sherman. It's a pretty daring concoction that, with a couple of notable exceptions (The treacly gospel choir of "Saved" and the cringe-inducing doo-wop of "Shabop Shalom"), works rather brilliantly. It's definitely a stretching-out record with Devendra bravely exploring more theatrical musical niches that would terrify most artists, and while at moments it can border on cheese, for the most part it's got some of the best songwriting, band performances and production that he's committed to wax (or plastic) so far. Deluxe edition features full color booklet of Devendra's lyrics, drawings and paintings. Recommended!
We've been told that amidst the piles of four-track recordings that Devendra Banhart has made, there are over 100 songs yet to be released. All of the tracks from the critically acclaimed debut album "Oh Me Oh My..." (even NPR has been raving about it!) came from that wealth of material. Thus, it's somewhat disappointing that the "The Black Babies (UK)" ep -- so-called 'cause it was originally intended just for release in England -- only features 6 previously unheard offerings of his wonderfully bizarre folk songs and 2 tracks from the aforementioned "Oh Me Oh My..." album. Nonetheless, "The Black Babies" is a very welcome addition. Devendra's voice continues to belie his gender with a straining vibrato that sounds more like a crazed Billie Holiday, or more accurately like the '60s Village folk maven Karen Dalton. Overdubbing just his voice and his elliptical fingerpicking of an acoustic guitar through borrowed four-tracks, Devendra's songs work through their ability to communicate the extremes of emotion with so little to work with. It also doesn't hurt his cause that all of his material is swathed in the audio cobwebs of tape hiss, residual ambience, and purposefully unkempt production. In light of such lo-fi indie-rock offerings as The Mountain Goats and Sebadoh, none of this is new; although Devendra's subject matter seems far more magical and outlandish than the rumpled tragicomedies of those acts. While the highlights of "Oh Me Oh My..." were the bloodcurdling songs of pain and abjection, "The Black Babies (UK)" features more of his sort-of love songs, albeit, quite atypical love songs, in which Devendra pines for places like Maine, South Carolina, or Spain. This is some of the finest in magic realism.
MPEG Download: "Surgery I Stole" [/audio/devendrasurgeryistole.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Surgery I Stole" [/audio/devendrasurgeryistole.m3u]
By this point people seem to have really strong feelings one way or another about Devendra Banhart, ourselves included. We've been big fans of him from his first ultra personal other worldly creations and then as he transitioned his approach into a more fleshed out sound, and we really do appreciate the twists and turns his music has taken over the years and his willingness to play with different sounds and approaches, even when not entirely successful. Perhaps especially then!
Because the thing about Banhart's music is that for every slight slip up or overly feel-good goofy song that might make it on a record (and there are a couple here) there are so many intense and heartfelt, emotional and flat out incredible songs that help balance his uniquely skewed musical vision.
Despite all the hype and hoopla that's surrounded Banhart over the years, the truth is he might just be one of the best songwriters of the last decade. What Will We Be? fits very nicely alongside his recent outings Cripple Crow and Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Mountain, with some all out rocking and even glam moments ("16th Street & Valencia Roxy Music", "Rats") as well as a handful of tropical excursions, but it's the more slow and dreamy songs that really remind us why we love this guy so much. What Will We Be? is a record that requires multiple listens, as there are golden tracks throughout, which only really seep through after multiple plays. The cd comes with a beautiful booklet with the lyrics to each songs along with Banhart's wonderful drawings.
Only available on vinyl! This split LP with Jana Hunter features Devendra Banhart's first recordings without the spiritual guidance of Michael Gira since those very first home-recordings which comprised the Oh Me Oh My... album and the Black Babies UK ep, but Banhart's time with Gira certainly left an indelible mark on the former. Therefore it may or may not be surprising to find that unlike many of his earlier recordings on which Banhart struck a chord as a solitary untethered voice, his more recent material has embraced group choruses. In fact the final song on his side of this record seems to possess a unhinged giddiness along the lines of the Beach Boys' loopy sing-a-long rendition of the "Vegetables" tune on Smiley Smile. Banhart's no longer such a lone wolf, finding many kindred spirits in his travels -- such as Ms Jana Hunter with whom he shares this record. And perhaps it can be said that this sense of gathering is parallelled by the ever-increasing popularization of the avant-folk genre as a whole. Hunter and Banhart's music make for a great pairing of heart-baring, barebones compositions. At time her off-kilter voice is strikingly similar to his, creating an almost seamless transition from 'Side J.H." to "Side D.B.". Five songs apiece, and sure to please.
This record is so great! We've been listening to this almost as much as the recent Devils' Rejects soundtrack. Which is sort of funny when you know the whole story. But more on that later in the review. This is a greatest hits of sorts from a mysterious honky tonk bluegrass band from the seventies called Banjo And Sullivan. Mysterious mostly because of their tragic story. According to the liner notes, Adam Banjo and Roy Sullivan were last seen at a dingy hotel called the Kahiki Palms, a brief stop over on their 1978 tour. The scene of a grisly murder, both Banjo and Sullivan's spouses and their roadie Jimmy Cracker were found brutally murdered there. Banjo And Sullivan were never heard from again and were assumed killed. The record itself however should not necessarily be sullied by those tragic events, as the music in this collection is totally fun and funny and kick ass. The lyrics are goofy for sure ("Dick Soup" is the honky tonk equivelent of a 'sausage party' apparently) but the music is so killer. Totally rambunctious, wild and wooly bluegrass, banjos and honky tonk piano, crazy lap steel, and there are hooks all over the place. This is like the perfect blend of classic old time bluegrass and more modern Bloodshoot stuff like The Old 97's -- tracks like "I'm At Home Getting Hammered, While She's Out Getting Nailed", "I'm Trying To Quit, But I Just Quit Trying", "Lord, Don't Let Me Die In A Cheap Motel" and even a killer cover of "Freebird".
The funny part is -- this band actually never even existed! Banjo And Sullivan, as well as their wives Wendy and Gloria and their roadie Jimmy are all characters in the recent Rob Zombie movie The Devil's Rejects! And all of them meet a seriously gruesome end. But how fucking cool is that? What ridiculous attention to detail! There's not even any Banjo And Sullivan music in the movie, but still, they went to all the trouble to record a record, a great record! And then they released it through normal channels. In fact there's no mention anywhere on the package of the movie or Rob Zombie or anything. The only hint is in the liner notes, where it explains that they were the victims of a murderous gang called The Devil's Rejects! So by itself, this is a pretty cool, fun bluegrass record, but having seen the movie and knowing that this is just more elaborate back story for the film, makes this pretty darn amazing!
If you go to the Devil's Rejects website you can link to the Banjo And Sullivan website, check out the tour dates for that final tour in 1978, see photos and even see an old TV commercial for the record!!
The funny thing about Banjo Or Freakout, is you'll find neither on their records. Okay, well maybe a -little- freakout. But mostly, BoFO traffic in some seriously buzzy, warm and warbly fuzz drenched indie folk noise pop, acoustic guitars, vocal harmonies, some almost programmed sounding drums, total power pop hooks, think Neutral Milk Hotel, the Comas, Apples In Stereo, but filtered through the new breed of pop deconstructionists like Ducktails, Thee Oh Sees and the like.
The A side is all jangle and buzz and croon and will totally hit the spot and fill that Neutral Milk Hotel shaped hole in your heart, the B side though is totally blown out, absolute woozy shoegazy bliss, everything looped and hypnotic and buried under a haze of guitars and buzzy effects. And then there's the trippy rhythmic closer, equal parts Avarus style tribal clatter and drum circle kraut jam and Animal Collective outsider pop bliss. This record rules. Need to hear more bad!!
We weren't the only ones to choose to freakout (hee hee) when we first heard this band's prior vinyl only release. We sold a ton of those and it seemed lots of you also became bigtime fans of BoF's ability to bring new life to a '90s indie rock sensibility. BoF combine an atmospheric approach to recording with songs that showcase different sides to their aesthetic, from moody bittersweet pop nuggets, to daydream anthems, to classic indie rock slacker vibrations. We dig how they remind us of some of the '90s more unsung indie rock greats like 764-Hero and Red Stars Theory, as well as tapping into the warmth and immediacy of modern day bands like Grizzly Bear and The Dodos. If you're feeling burnt out after so many lo-fi, warbled garage pop records, this lush and full sounding indie pop will be seriously refreshing and will no doubt be just what you were hankering for...
It's hard to predict what songs will become hits, it's a magical mystical mysterious talent that few possess, and the ones who do wield that power like kings. But every once in a while, it's totally obvious, no secret talent needed, that jam you heard in the grocery store, in the background of a commercial, on the radio in the car, all it takes is a few seconds, and it's lodged in your head for good. The music, the vocals, the hook, the beat, the lyrics, when everything falls into place, few can resist. Which is also when songs and records get crazy hyped, and inevitably then incur some crazy backlash, which is precisely what happened to Azealia Banks and her song "212". A song we had been hearing about for months, but hadn't actually heard. Or hadn't realized we'd heard. Cuz we had just caught a second of some song on the radio that blew our minds, a weird, double-dutch-y Missy Elliott style stuttery hip-hop jam, all warped beats, skittery rhythms, and some of the craziest vocals, a sort of valley girl drawl, distorted and a little bit blown out, occasionally slipping into a weird dubbed out effects heavy loop, or a squelchy electro groove with an almost shouted hook, before lurching right back into it, with a cool little bloopy synth horn melody, and a lush soulful bridge, weird and warped, but CRAZY catchy. We did some digging and discovered that it was in fact the very same song we had been hearing about. So we looked it up on YouTube, watched the video, which only made us dig it more, AB a total cutie in a Mickey Mouse sweater, dancing with a nerdy pal, while spitting rhymes, and then we noticed just how nasty the lyrics were, easily the most occurrences of the word 'cunt' in a top 40 pop song, and then we wondered how the fuck they could have altered the song for radioplay, considering the 'chorus' is pretty much unbroadcastable. As is the verse really. But whatever. You've probably heard this already, and you probably already dig it too. Needless to say, this is WAY worth the $5 for that song alone, and we listened to that song about a hundred times before we even bothered listening to the rest. But the other three songs are pretty good too, the Missy Elliott influence even more prevalent, one a little bit of a techno vibe, one a little bit housey (with some dark bark beats, and a goofy slowed down vocal outro), and the title track sounding like Missy Elliott by way of Tribe Called Quest. Cool.
Darrell Banks was a great, if obscure, soul singer whose too-short career started in the mid '60s and ended abruptly with his death in 1970. In that time he sadly only released two albums and seven singles of beautiful soul music in the vein of groups on
This is the first we've heard from German ambient doomlords Bann, and the first release on the fledgling Grief Foundation label (already a well respected UK metal distro) and we're pretty smitten. This is epic and heavy stuff, with a slightly medieval flair. Three looooooong songs, the first, beginning with what sounds like some creepy Carpenter / Goblin horror movie score, until the drums gradually fade in and we're in Skepticism style doom land, and then finally the guitars kick in and we're in the midst of some seriously crushing medieval doom, a plodding swinging lurching dirge, that quickly segues into an almost Renn Faire sounding bridge, complete with fluttering flutes and sweeping keyboard swells and an awesomely ridiculous spurt of classical strings before resuming its glacial plod. Halfway through the guitars fade out leaving a swirl of whispery synths, delicately plucked acoustic guitars, hushed vocals, strange sound effects, all drifting ominously, before that folky medieval crush crashes back in. Simultaneously lilting and lovely, buzzing and brutal.�
The second track begins with a roaring fire, looped snippets of conversation that become more and more frenzied, grandiose King's court keyboards, finally enveloped by a gorgeous melancholy riff, that trudges along, beneath a sprinkling of pointilist piano, another break partway through reveals rain and thunder, whipping winds and strange reverbed German voices, a creepy cinematic interlude, that quicklygives way to that same loping melancholy dirge, the piano just making� it that much more emotional and dark. Very classic sounding, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, but with a demented medieval twist.�
The final track begins with melancholy folk guitar, warm swells of synthesized strings, soon joined by buzz drenched riffage, slow and droning, the whole track sounding quite a bit like classic Burzum, slowed down, and with weird witchy vocals and an epic Viking-style recurring melody, Gorgeously mournful and completely trance inducing.
Total epic�medieval ambient doom!!!
An earnest and bespectacled introvert may be what you have in mind when it comes to the visage of a new age musician. Maybe a bunch of crystals casting prismatic beams of light simultaneously from candles and streams of sunlight. Maybe a billowy sarong as garb with a plethora of beads around the neck. According to the liner notes for the acclaimed I Am The Center compilation of New Age private pressings and rare recordings from the '70s and '80s, Mark Banning came across looking more like a "broke down Hells Angel." The context of busted knuckles and oil-stained leather is a wonderful counterpoint to enshroud a pristine sparkle of quiet New Age ambience for guitar, zither, and soft electronics. Tracy, California is the town where Banning called home at the time; and that's one of the neighboring communities to the fictional city of Charming from the TV motorcycle drama Sons Of Anarchy. In 1984, Banning recorded and released Journey To The Light as a private pressing, and he did have an excerpted track from a different recording included on the aforementioned I Am The Center compilation. Journey To The Light wafts along Banning's guitar playing which alternates between chorus-laden, E-Bow guitar explorations that recall a lighter version of the Manuel Gottsching ethos and a painterly lyricism of brightly ringing chords similar to Maurice Deebank. The lush electronics that surround the guitars are accompanied by a celebratory strum across the zither. This is the real deal when it comes to the New Age, regardless of the rough context in which it was recorded. Lovely, contemplative, inner-mind music reissued by the impeccable imprint Students Of Decay.
Here's an album of (sometimes radical) interpretations of traditional British and American folk songs, all done by Bob Bannister of Tono Bungay. Melancholy stuff beloved by fans of Shirley Collins and the like ("The Murder Of Maria Marten", "George Collins",
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Grabbed this off of Jim's favorites shelf, this is what he had to say about it: "As Sabotage gets a criminally small amount of press, there will be virtually no hype for Bannlust...which is a fucking shame, as thousands of trainspotters will pass this up looking for that long gone Autechre album when they should be listening to this...as good if not better than recent Autechre and/or Skam recordings!!!"
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The fifth in the series of split singles of leftfield electronica from the fabulous Fat Cat label. Bannlust (whose Digital Tension album for Sabotage last year was a stunning surprise) presents three tracks that rival Autechre with their moody and hypnotic crunch of fractured dark electro. Chasm (a.k.a. Robert Hampson of Main/Loop) pares away the isolationist guitar drones in favour of disjointed beats generated through micro processing of concrete sounds.
Very first solo record from one Mr. J. Bannon, who most of you might know better as the frontman for the mighty Converge, as well as the head honcho of Deathwish Records. But don't let the whole Deathwish / Converge angle mislead you, Bannon also did time in a group called Supermachiner, a more abstract project exploring drones, and blissed out post rock and epic cinematic ambience, and while this 7" is a bit closer to Supermachiner than it is to Converge, it's actually very little like either.
A single track, beginning with a slow whispered shimmer, a simple throbbing distorted bass, very spare and spacious, pulsing amidst soft sonic swells, a creepy minor key melody, a soft dirge. Eventually the vocals come in, mirrored by plinking piano, underpinned by simple percussion, the vocals plaintive and melancholy, a mournful croon, the piano adding some instrumental gravitas, a slow slow slow build, only truly exploding near the very end, and even then it's not so much an explosion as a culmination, a sort of Godspeed like pinnacle, which quickly fades back into the record's opening shimmer. Very reminiscent of Low actually, a dark, dreamy, drifting, abstract slow core. A tempting teaser for the forth coming full length.
And most folks know that beyond playing in Converge, Bannon is also an amazing graphic designer, and that becomes plainly obvious when you see the over the top packaging. The records are pressed on various colors of vinyl, silver, gold, creme, it's a one sided 7", the flip side features a super intricate etching, a winged skull, flowers, and tiny text, all housed in a gorgeous screen printed card stock sleeve that folds together origami style. Each record also includes a download coupon so you can get these analog sounds on your digital player of choice.
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We picked up some copies of our favorite Dancehall track by Buju Banton. This is the same track that was featured on the 400% Dynamite compilation. The B-Side contains the dub version of the same track. We've ordered several, but we don't know how many more we can continue to get, so if you want one you should order sooner rather than later.
Another weird one from The Tapeworm, a UK tape only label, who specialize in, well, it's hard to say what they specialize in. Past releases gave included tapes from Philip Jeck, Simon Fisher Turner, a recording of interviews with Derek Jarman, some amazing psych jazz from a group called the Van Patterson Quartet among other strange offerings. So considering all of those, this record from Baraclough, a London trio of abstract noisemakers, sounds right at home.
Described by the label as being made up of a "classically trained musician, a self taught musician and a non musician", the trio exist somewhere between abstract minimal drone music, and the sort of stumbling anti-folk of No Neck or Sunburned Hand, but doused in electronics and a healthy bit of Nurse With Wound style industrial noise. Simple delicate melodies and bursts of percussion, drift dreamily over a caustic sea of black buzz, roiling and crumbling in a cloud of blurred distortion, squalls of grinding electronic glitch throb and envelop hushed vocals, and splatters of minimal looped percussion, sometimes locking into an almost This Heat sounding mesmer, the sound slipping from rhythmic hypno-lurch to blown out crumbling murmur, to delicate shimmery smearscape.
Unlike much of what comes out on The Tapeworm, these guys are a going concern, with actual records on other labels, and after hearing this, odds are you're gonna want to track those down too.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!
Since we're reviewing the brand new record from Israel's Barbara, we figured we would get a handful of their first record, so all of you who missed out on this killer disc the first time around could have anther chance...
How could we resist? A band called Barbara. From Israel. On the cover, the name Barbara is written in ornate olde English, with the middle 'b' extending into a huge crucifix. The record is called A Blessing From The Angel Of Death! Song titles include "Heart Of Thorns", "Concrete Heaven", "Morbidity" and "Hotdog" (?). We knew before we even heard it that this was AQ through and through. Thankfully, the music was just as good as we had hoped. Noisy and raw, Blessing... was recorded live in Tel Aviv in 1999, and sounds like it. Overblown and a bit lo-fi, with super saturated vocals and crumbing guitar distortion, this is wild and chaotic and furiously intense. Imagine a black metal Hella, or the Ruins playing Darkthrone in a concrete bunker, or an even more damaged sounding Lightning Bolt. Just bass and drums, a super tight, uber distorted sludge-metal rhythmic chaos engine, spitting out relentless metallic mayhem, wild unpredictably spastic drumming, huge throbbing mud bass, and howled and shrieked vocals. Occasionally, the band stretches out into ambient post rock, doomy Khanate-isms, all syncopated bursts of musical bile, melodies hidden amidst prickly pounding riffage. And as with lots of live recordings, it's totally disconcerting to hear the barely there smattering of applause in the black hole vacuum of silence between each song. This is the sort of monstrous brutality that you imagine being played atop Valhalla, across a valley of cowering minions, bowed in reverent worship. Or at least in the corner of a sweaty, writhing, jam packed little club!
Finally! A brand new record from Israel's Barbara. A band we fell in love with before we even heard them. Why? Well, they're called Barbara to start with, they're from Israel, Barbara is written in olde English with the first 'b' extending into a crucifix, and they're a bass and drums duo. We were completely sold before we even discovered how amazing they sounded. But with all that going for them, if they didn't rule, we would have seriously lost faith in the universe.
The sound on Peger is not all that far removed from their 1999 debut A Blessing From The Angel Of Death, the biggest difference being that where the first disc was a live record, this is recorded in a studio, so it sounds heavier, noisier and more intense. A sloppy, ultra loose doomy prog jam of the highest order. It's like a confusional mix of Godheadsilo, Hella, Burmese, Lightning Bolt and the Ruins, but dipped in molten metal and rolled around in filthy gritty grimy dooooom. The guitars buzz and moan, chugging and grinding, weaving elaborate layered fuzzscapes and jagged melodies, a seriously sludgy downtuned blast of sonic chaos, feedback and amp buzz everywhere, shrieked vocals and blown out rumbles... but it's the drums holding it all together, a relentless ultra complex pound, drums splattered everywhere and cymbals crashing all over the place, like someone was firing a machine gun into a room stuffed with old drum kits. But this isn't just noise rock, the songs are weirdly catchy, underneath all the throb and pummel, thrash and grind, lurk some killer hooks and some super memorable riffs. And interspersed throughout the record are washed out extended drones, long stretches of buzzing fuzzed out guitar, and rumbling low end, punctuated by occasional bursts of aggro drum crush. Some super abstract ambient doom, that always seems to collapse back into another blast of stumbling low end punishment. So good!
Holy cow, hard to think this record almost never saw the light of day, but it was nearly so, 2006-2008 being a collection of sorts, gathering up almost everything recorded by this short lived fuzzed out jangle pop garage rock combo from Memphis, whose members would be plucked out of the group to join Jay Reatard on the road as his backup band, and who would later go on to form the Magic Kids and play in Wavves. But while they were a band, and we assume before the above mentioned plucking, Jay Reatard would record The Barbaras whenever he wasn't on tour. Later, before his death, Reatard for some reason claimed to have erased all of his Barbaras recordings, which thankfully proved to be not actually true, as much later, in 2011, the bulk of this collection was discovered, still stored on Reatard's digital recorder. So after some further recording, mixing, polishing and reworking, the only full length from the Barbaras finally sees the light of day, and we have to say, it was well worth it.
All it should take is about 30 seconds of album opener "Day At The Shrine", with its dense barrage of drumming, sing songy vocals, HUGE hooks, jangle crunch, sunshine-y ooooooh background vox, total beach ready jangle pop bliss out, fun and summery and catchy as all get out. And that pretty much sets the template for the rest of the record, a twisted fuzz pop affair, with strange arrangements, vocals that slip into falsetto 'la-la's at the drop of a hat, swirling synths, the sound simultaneously murky and lo-fi, but surprisingly lush and rocking, fans of groups like Wavves, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, the Babies, Woods, will find much to love here, the songs super varied from rollicking rockers, to groovy sixties girl group style shuffles, to angular synth driven new wavey garage punk, to almost twee dream pop, to swaggery old school garage stomp, it's easy to see why Reatard wanted these guys in his band, and fans of later, poppier Jay Reatard stuff, will be in heaven. Pop record/reissue of the year, quite possibly!
Simple and primitive, sort-of-black, sort-of-thrash one man band from Japan (a guy from the band Abigal). Mid tempo and lo-fi, thrashy, noisy and almost punky. Think: a more metal Motorhead, or a less metal Impaled Nazarene. Catchy and a bit melodic with
Not only is this a killer split of evil black thrash, Japan's Barbatos and Finland's Incriminated, each offering up songs dealing with war and history, but it's a whole new format you've never seen before (really!), and is pretty damn out there. More on that in a second.
The music first. Barbatos from Japan, are amazing evil black thrashers, with a definite punk vibe, the guitars howling, the drums crashing, the spirit of Venom, Motorhead, but supercharged and blackened. The perfect match for Incriminated from Finland, who walk in the same bloodied footsteps as Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, a black thrash, furious and raw, primitive and black.
The Incriminated song is called "Blue Swastikas" but before you freak out, as the band states in their liner notes: "If you think Incriminated are nazis for dealing with historical topics, then you are nazi yourself!" Okay, so they're not Nazis and the song is about some classic WWII battle, maybe they could have come up with a different title since that stuff is a pretty sensitive subject in the black metal world, but whatever�
Both tracks rock furiously, heavy and primitive, buzzing and brutal. But, these aren't cds, nor are they vinyl eps. Instead they are one sided plastic discs, like cds, but each disc has record grooves pressed into the plastic. Designed to be played on record players, but due to the cd sized hole in the middle, it's tough to get it centered, and as far as we know they don't yet make an adapter for that. But it looks amazing, and everyone we show it to has to hold it and touch it and look at it to try to figure out how the heck you play something like this. Fans of raw black metal, as well as weird music, and weird packaging especially will definitely want to check this out.
A new wave of ESP reissues has finally arrived bringing a handful of obscure gems back into print.
This disc is the Gato Barbieri from the old days, 1967 to be exact, before he had softened up and mellowed out and was still a major player in the jazz avant garde. Dark and rumbling jazzscapes of bowed cello and skittering, slithering percussion and haunting reverbed pianos underscore wickedly inspired solos from session leader Barbieri. Unlikely melodies and furious harmolodic runs are peppered with intense screeching and soulful wailing. Truly inspired and still amazing even after almost 35 years!
An awesome live recording from these psych rock astral travelers, this lengthy two track performance recorded live in the living room of a house somewhere in Philadelphia finds the Pond at their driftiest and dreamiest. The opening track is a 34 minute psychbliss epic, guitars swirl and shimmer, drifting lazily across a gauzy sun dappled sonic sky, violins float by occasionally as do snatches of fluttering flute, the background dense with chimes and distant bells, muted melodies and slow undulating waves of guitar groan and ambient rumble, colored here and there by some scrape and hiss, as well as voices and sounds from the partygoers seated around the band. It's a sloooooow build and when it finally does reach it's peak, it's not a blow out as much as a heavy drone. Totally mesmerizing and tranceworthy! The second track, clocking in at a much more brief 12 minutes or so, is an even more mellow affair, simple drifting acoustic guitar, hand drums, flutes and ethereal female vocals, while in the background, thick billowing clouds of distorted psychedelic guitar pulse and swell, like some mysterious sonic Northern lights. So nice. Hard to imagine these sounds emanating from a house in some suburb, unless that house suddenly became unmoored and began drifting through alternate universes, or through some unexplored corner of the galaxy. So perfect!
LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!! Two different covers, each one super striking, no need to ask for a specific cover, they'll be pulled at random, and you'll be pleased as punch either way!
If we had to pick our favorite modern psych rock band, it might be tough. There are so many groups who have mastered the fine art of druggy soundscapes, tripped out space rock, and in-the-red avantpsych drone jams. But if push comes to shove, most of us would probably pick Bardo Pond.
Release after release, every single one of their records manages to push all our musical buttons, be it droney krautrockishness, damaged freaked out noise rock, trippy stoned drift, fluttering psych folk, heavy riffrock, or all of the above! These guys have mastered their craft, but remain unafraid to just wing it, jamming wildly, almost always resulting in something truly transcendent.
Batholith, while ostensibly an actual album, is in fact, a collection of some of Bardo's favorite songs that for whatever reason have never been released until now. Some live tracks, Peel sessions, and the opener "A Tune", that the band began their legendary Terrastock II set with, a laid back stoned groove, all warm washed out guitars and shuffling drums, until over the top, in swoop the Gibbons brothers, to tear it up, unfurling fiery sun baked leads over the top, wrapped around the vocals, a buried murmur, ghostly and gauzy, the whole track a glorious acid drenched, fuzzy buzzy drone-y jam.
In fact most of Batholith sounds like that, super hazy, lazy, drawn out, sprawling riffs, dreamy and definitely WAY druggy.
But that all changes about halfway through.
"Splint" begins as a post rocky meander, barely any guitars, just little trills and flourishes here and there, amidst a cloud of bass thrum and shuffling drums, which rev up about half way through into a dense churning wall of sound, crumbling and massive, before drifting back to the track's opening drift. "Slip Away" is total nineties shoegaze, somewhere between the Swirlies and Swervedriver, the vocals ethereal and dreamlike, the drums a driving pound, but guitars EVERYWHERE, thick and fuzzed out, layers upon layers, one guitar soaring above the rest, skywriting buzzing minor key melodies over the top, sometimes exploding into wahwah drenched squalls, other times just adding to the overall buzz.
The final track, the longest at 10 minutes, is all Eastern raga, with some steel string buzz that sounds a bit like a sitar, a loping sea sick main riff, a hypnotic pulse like drum beat, and again the guitars take over, snarling and growling and glowing, a super intense tangle of downtuned buzz, draped over the steady motorik jam beneath, until the band launch into space, and unload an incredibly fierce and furious space rock outro, the drums dense and complex, the bass thick and fuzzy, the guitars all wound up in a glorious psychdrone battle to the death.
Incredibly deluxe packaging. Heavy heavy gatefold. The record pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Included with the lp is a cd of the same music. LIMITED TO 1049 COPIES!!!
BUT! While they last, we have the even more limited first edition (only 533 copies!) which come with a second bonus cd, featuring one lengthy bonus track. First come, first served, once the bonus disc version is gone, you'll get the regular edition, which still comes with the cd of the album proper.
One of our favorite records from this Philly drone / drug / psych ensemble, available again on lp, this time with a bonus track, and a cd version bundled with the lp...
Bufo Alvarius, originally released in 1995, was Bardo Pond's first, and some (us for example) might argue, still their best, completely tripped out, hazy sonic sedatives administered in the form of blown out space psych bliss, the guitars not so much riffing as expelling thick undulating sheets of warped fuzz, the drums, loose and propulsive, driving the songs, but not rigidily, the flute fluttering throughout, like melodic flecks floating in a swirling sonic sea of bongwater, the band do occasionally come together, and briefly sound like a super loose spaced out slowed down Stooges, but even then they stumble and meander, lurch and lumber, staggering druggily through clouds of spectrascopic sonic splutter, eventually exploding into full on effects drenched meltdown, managing to sound heavy and dense and trippy, but still totally dreamy and mesmerizing.
A few tracks get all jangly, and the band sound like Pavement covering Spacemen 3, while extremely high, the female vocals are doused in reverb and echo and delay, and they drift ghostlike through woozy whirling fields of tangled psychedelic guitar freakout, the whole band seemingly on the verge of total collapse, this record a document of a group teetering gloriously on the edge. When the band rock, they rock hard, and sound a bit like Loop, albeit a whole lot more loose, that same sort of psychedelic hypno-drug-rock, but in the hands of Bardo Pond, those moments never last, instead, what could be a driving super heavy rocker, tends again, to crumble, and collapse, into a stumbling druggy psych dirge of swirling sweet crooned female vox, pounding off kilter drumming, a tangled knot of corruscated guitar buzz, everything wrapped in a thick cloak of grimy, gritty fuzzed out whirr. It really doesn't get heavier, or trippier or more psychedelic than this. Take the nearly half hour track "Amen", a single track, but essentially an entire bonus record, a fantastically OUT ambient sprawl of impressionistic psychguitar, bleary free noise, and druggy dreamlike ambience, the sort of blown out abstraction most current bands couldn't pull off if their lives depended on it.
This recent reissue tacks on a bonus track, the groovy woozy jangly "Fixed", that begins all strummy and soft focus, before the drums kick in hard, the vocals serene and sweet, backed up by a wall of churning psychedelia, softy strummed clean guitar, and of course haunting spectral flute. So good.
Way recommended, easily one of our all time favorite modern psych records, and to all those folks into the new breed of psychedelic space rock: White Hills, the Heads, Gnod, Eternal Tapestry, Heavy Winged... You NEED this!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
What we have here is not exactly a new album from Philly's deeply stoned-sounding sonic spacefarers Bardo Pond, though it sort of is... This is part one of a planned series that will gather up the loose ends of BP's prolific recording career: tracks from singles, comps, etc. All BP-heads should be pleased! Cypher Documents I collects seven tracks that were previously only ever released as temporarily-available, mp3-of-the-month downloads on the band's website, except for one of 'em ("Living Testament") that also made it onto a Ptolemaic Terrascope magazine comp. And, the epic 31-minute "From The Sky" that appears here was only a five minute long edit in its original mp3 form. All these tracks date from the period between their 1999 Set and Setting album and 2001's Dilate. The disc begins with the slide-riffing, moaning, heavy-duty psych-out action of "Living Testament" and takes it from there, sometimes getting even heavier (the ominous "Slag"), sometimes quieter (the hushed "Nomad"), always sounding MEGA-STONED. The disc ends with the aforementioned "From The Sky" epic, preceeded by the nearly-as-epic 13-minute "Black Turban". Bardo Pond fans need this, also probably you want this if you're into the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, Kinski, Doktor Kettu, and the like (which means you're likely a Bardo Pond fan anyway, what are we saying?). Even though it's not a "real" album it's already one of our faves from this band.
A marked improvement from their last release -- the disappointing blues jam "Set & Setting" -- Bardo Pond's "Dilate" mopes through its thick psychedelic haze of washed out guitar and slow 'n' simple rhythms that aren't exactly memorable, but can't be forgotten after taking a really big hit on that multi-chambered water bong. The first couple of tracks have all of the slow-burning dark
No one does stoned and blissed out deep-in-the-forest jams better than Bardo Pond. For over fifteen years now this Philly outfit have been kicking out some of the most gorgeous organic spaced out rock EVER. Bardo Pond have so many different sides to their sound, from more song based tracks, to full on psychedelia, to dirgey space rock, and of course there's the sprawling tripped out and totally dreamy epic jams.
Gazing At Shilla finds the Pond in the latter mode, which is just fine as we can't get enough of that sound, when the band somehow bring earth and sky together in gloriously cataclysmic ways, allowing us to get so totally and fantastically lost in their sound. Recorded between 2003-2006, each side is a single, fantastic, sprawling twenty minute instrumental. "Eight - Thousanders" finds the band soaring and floating and gliding with such ease and fluidity. While "Kali" gets a little buzzier and darker, gritty space-y sonics transmitted from another dimension. Imagine if Roy Montgomery and Sonic Youth joined forces, or those special moments when Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple set their trajectory for cosmic spheres unknown. Ultimately though, it sounds like Bardo Pond (albeit only one of their many sides), a band who continue to grow, evolve and rule!
This the first of a new four part Bardo Pond related series of limited edition vinyl only releases on Important, we also just got the others in, one each by Bardo side projects Alaeshir, Alumbrados, and Moon Phantoms - the latter a collaboration with Japan's Suishu No Fune!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Wonderful new album.
Time to get high. Philly psych-jam outfit Bardo Pond seems to be best appreciated with some THC intake. Or maybe not, we wouldn't know, that's just what we've been told. But certainly, for those of us who don't smoke that stuff, they're one of those bands that could be used as an aural substitute for such illicit substances. Either way, this is definitely stoner rock, of the heavy-lidded, droney, downer variety. Compared to their recent Matador label albums (Set And Setting, Dilate), this new one for ATP seems somewhat heavier and sludgier -- it's one that could be appreciated by those into the likes of Dead Meadow, Sleep or even Electric Wizard. Yet it's still downy soft, too, with folky, acoustic songs living among (or within) the massive electric-psych-guitar wash ones. Delicate female vocals from flautist Isobel drift o'er the mellowed out, doped up distortion. It's as airy as it is hairy. Loping, slumbrous, gentle, melancholic, blissful, hazy... What Sleep was to Black Sabbath's "Lord Of This World", much of this is to Sabbath's "Solitude". Bardo fans of course will like, and even if you haven't been that into Bardo Pond before, we'd say this is defintely one to check out. Maybe their best in a while. Real nice. Play loud.
Very little has changed in the Bardo Pond camp, even after all these many years, and nearly as many records. And we're grateful for that. Peace On Venus is another collection of stunning, sprawling, spaced out heavy psych bliss out, with skies full of swirling distorted guitars, anchored by laid back drumming, and minimal basslines, and as always flecked with ethereal fluttering flutes, and those super distinctive, wasted, female vox. Just give a listen to opener "Kali Yuga Blues", with its thick, super distorted, crumbling riffage, blown out and laid back dream-psych heaviness, that builds to a truly intense coda, with FX drenched guitar swirl, drifting atop swaths of swirling flutes, the vocals buried in the mix, loping and lilting, moody and melancholic, and seriously druggy and dreamy. And so it goes, "Taste", is a brooding dark psych ballad, the flute providing much of the melody, with a kick ass midsong psychedelic freakout, but otherwise drifting drowsily, while "Fir" is nearly metallic in its heft, the riffing massive and blown out, the vocals witchy and bewitching, a dirgey psych lumber, equal parts blissed out space rock shimmer and churning downtuned doom, maybe one of our favorite BP tracks ever!
The record finishes off with two 10+ minute epics, first, the folky "Chance", which begins just acoustic guitar and flute, before the psychedelic guitars drift in, the song another loping midtempo brooder, sounding almost like a more psychedelic druggy version of classic Silkworm (which is most definitely a compliment), but again, the flute provides most of the melody, the bulk of the song spent drifting lazily, until the big build, and final few minutes freakout, where wah wah guitars get all tangled and intense, the flute following suit, total psych-prog bliss. Which leads directly into closer "Before The Moon", which as a sort of seventies UK acid folk vibe, albeit cranked up a bit and distorted, lurching, and drowsy, the guitars again crunchy and crumbling, buzzed out and droney, maybe the mathiest of the bunch, the prog vibe blurred into the group's zoner psych drift, the flute drifting in and out, the whole thing getting seriously metallic for the last minute or two, sounding a bit like a more witchy doomy version of Bardo Pond, one that might just appeal to fans of Jex Thoth, Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood, Sabbath Assembly, Loon and the like!
Peri is a companion of sorts to the earlier Bardo Pond release Batholith, which itself was a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks. The wealth of material compiled for Batholith resulted in this, a second volume of rarities, culled from the last almost 15 years. It includes some old fan favorites, and we have to say this is the sort of Bardo Pond we love, so sludgey and murky and psychedelic and raw, the band seriously HEAVY, their psychedelia dark and drone-y and intense, the guitars thick and gnarled, the vocals ghostlike and buried in the mix, lots of fluttering flutes, thick squalls of wild guitar freakout, the drums a pounding thud. Just check out the opener "Karwan", a slithery sprawling sludgey groove, the guitars thick and cloudy, the drums more of a slow motion tribal pulse than a rhythm, the main riff loping and woozy and druggy, the vocals laid back and weary, the whole thing sounding like it's being broadcast through a haze of pot smoke.
"The Path" is short and more delicate, the vocals and flutes way up front, but fiery guitars buzz just below the surface, the vibe almost folky, which perfectly segues into "Libation" a way more laid back space jam, the drums skittery and spare, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the vocals again buried in the mix, and a wicked psych blowout outro.
"Chicken Gun" was a live staple from the nineties, and features a bad ass main riff, lots of wah wah, thick distorted guitars, cool chanteuse like vocals, strange atonal flute freakouts, and a sound that just gets heavier and heavier and more dense as the track progresses. Finally, the record closes with "Silver Pavillion", another classic Bardo oldie, tripped out and dreamy and druggy, more krautrocky than anything, the guitars unfurling soft shimmery buzz, but again with an explosive climax, wild intense drumming, and some intense tangled psych guitar dueling. Total space rock / drone rock / krautrock nirvana.
Weirdly, the vinyl is limited to 1640 copies, while the cd-only version is limited to a mere 350 copies, so those will most likely be gone before the lps. But heck, you might as well buy the lp, since not only does it ALSO come with a cd anyway, it comes in a gorgeous ultra heavy, super swank and super deluxe gatefold jacket!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hard to believe Bardo Pond has been around for over 15 years, and even harder to believe that they continue to create slab after slab of gorgeous drug soaked psychedelia far better than their more well known and more prolific psychedelic brethren. The tracks on Selections were culled from a series of cd-r's recorded and released over the last 5 years or so, and sold only on tour, not proper records per se, but more snapshots of works in progress, songs in the early stages, random recordings from the practice space and all manner of sonic experiments. Which is maybe why this stuff sounds so visceral and intense. Druggy hippy blues guitar, lazy and languorous with shuffling simple percussion over slow flowing waves of buzzing distortion, thick layered drones and swirling psychedelic swoosh. Occasional melodies materialize as ethereal flute drifts by like smoke from a hookah. Bursts of chaotic and stumbling propulsive space-psych dissipate into haunting and slow building ambient post rock epics a la Mogwai or Godspeed, occasionally stretching out into simple and insistent reverb soaked Krautrock style jams. All these musical ideas and almost-songs nestle within thick washes of cascading feedback and sheets of dreamy wah guitar. We kind of wish they had decided to make this a quadruple cd instead of a double, as this collects only about half of the material on the original cd-rs, but even so, this is most definitely some of the most mind blowing, soul soothing psychedelic space rock you're likely to hear EVER.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ten-inch vinyl-only release from these Philadelphia psychedelic rockers. Three songs: "Off The Prepice","Hit", and "The Deak". Limited and numbered, 500 made, silkscreened sleeves, very stoned.
Wow! Somehow Bardo Pond just keep getting better and better and with Ticket Crystals we're pretty dang sure they've made their best record yet! Everything we love about Bardo Pond all wrapped up in one surprisingly coherent album. Expansive guitars, dusty clouds of sonic whir, grungy outbursts, spaced out jams, metallic undertones, deep in the woods folk wanderings (yes, of course there's ultra warm flute on display!), and some mysterious pop sensibility to boot! Ticket Crystals is to Bardo Pond what Feathers was to Dead Meadow, the perfect culmination of years of songcraft and sonic experimentation resulting in both bands best records ever. Fans of Dead Meadow will indeed eat this up (some folks here think this record might even top all time AQ fave Feathers) as will long time BP fans. And any one into the whole blown out psych rock thing, a la Loop, Spacemen 3, Telescopes, etc, NEED THIS. How the heck you missed out on Bardo Pond in the first place we'll never know but c'mon, dig in!!
Ticket Crystals is the kind of record that you can get completely lost in, a wild dreamlike psychedelia that pulls you in deeper and deeper as it unravels. A slow burning spacerock equal parts drone and drift. A record that manages to be totally heavy, beautifully abstract, completely catchy and so so lovely all at the same time. SO RECOMMENDED!
The latest in the ongoing Latitudes series, in which bands pop into Southern Studios in the UK and capture a session live to tape, comes from long time aQ faves, Philly psychedelic space rockers Bardo Pond. And while lots of Latitudes releases are anxiously anticipated, often from the second they're announced (which is often months and months before they're released), we can't remember one that had people in as much of a tizzy as this one. But the wait was well worth it. Three extended jams, everything we love about these guys (and gal) present and accounted for, brooding hypno rock mesmer, churning squalls of psychedelic guitar noise, driving rhythms, swirling ethereal vox, all blurred into heaving expanses of dense, droned out psychedelia. Opener "The Cawl" finds the band immediately launching into a sprawl of heady kraut-psych, the guitars whipping up clouds of caustic crunch and swirling layered riffage, there is a groove, but it seems to bleed into something much more amorphous, wreathed in tangles of distortion and melody, all smeared into a drone-like churn, anchored by some kick ass drumming, over which ghostly vocals drift and shimmer. Like all the best BP jams, it could have stretched out way longer than its 7 minutes.
The second track, "Side To Side" is a bit more riffy, with some swagger to it, seeming to channel Flower Travellin' Band, Hawkwind and Godspeed, all soaring and epic and bit swaggery, with a crazy catchy vocal refrain, and a lurching almost doomy groove, as the track progresses the guitars get a bit more wild, and the vocals drift to the fore, but that roiling main riff drive the track throughout, very metallic mantra like.
And finally, the session ends with the epic 20+ minute "A Crossing", which is of course where a band like Bardo Pond really shine, and shine they do, stretching out a softly psychedelic, ethereally propulsive space psych sprawl, the drums skittery and loose, the bulk of the track multiple guitars swirling and cascading, coalescing into proper riffs, but just as quickly dissipating into whirling clouds of ambient psychedelic shimmer and prismatic sonic swirls. The track manages to be gloriously dynamic as well, the band building up to some serious sonic heft, the guitars exploding into wild tangles, the drums pounding away, but always slipping right back into a more mesmerizing, woozily rhythmic soft psych tranced out krautgroove, and even at 20 minutes, WAY too short.
As always, most definitely recommended for fans of White Hills, The Heads, Carlton Melton, 3 Leafs, and similarly minded psychedelic space rock explorers.
Packaged as usual in that distinctive Latitudes packaging. Both the lp and cd in a brown and white origami style sleeve, with a cool silver metallic embossed print on the front, the vinyl with a super elaborate die cut cover, and a full color insert inside with liner notes. BOTH LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
We've long been a fan of Bardo Pond, but this new record definitely took a few listens to get into. The response everyone seemed to have was "this sounds really WAY out of tune", and it does, sort of. Right from the outset, the group unfurl some woozy warbly strummy twang flecked psych folk, the strings buzzing and tangling, the melodies, shifting and intertwining, the vocals sounding sort of out of sync with the music, the bassline warped and underwater sounding, the drums an abstract scatter of beats, but as that first song continues, the vocals sink into the mire, harmonica begins to wheeze, the sounds of birds (?) surface, and the guitars, gradually grow more and more intense, first smoldering, before gradually catching fire, and finally exploding, and then the band are KILLING it, a huge squall of swirling, super distorted, wild and loose and chaotic druggy droned out psych guitar freakout, the drums pounding, everything twisted and sprawling and lit from within like some sort of sonic supernova, revealing the group's true purpose, the vocals returning, now sounding perfect, multitracked and nestled within the coruscating sheets of crumbling distortion and pealing blown out leads. The sort of epic dreamlike drugged out jam you never want to end. And that's how the band introduce their latest full length, their self titled their eighth proper full length, nearly two decades into their career, and they still sound as loose and free and psychedelic and heavy as ever. If not more so.
The rest of the record follows suit, "Don't Know About You" launches into a thick crusty chunky bit of riffage, the vocals witchy and snarly, the perfect match for the group's super distorted groove, everything still wreathed in streaks of effects and guitarnoise, and like the track before it, blossoming into some seriously heady psychedelia, surprisingly melodic too, the guitar tone epic, thick and blown out, almost Kyuss-y, that same sort of fuzz and crunch, and the more we listen, the more this sounds like BP at their most songy, sure most of the record is spent unfurling epic space out mega jams, but they're wrapped around dirgey downer pop, some weird hybrid of the Stooges, the Velvets and Crazy Horse, but dosed and doused and let loose, to billow up in great clouds of heaviness, of swirling trippiness. "Sleeping" offers a little respite, all hazy acoustic guitars and warm fluttering flutes, some woozy, acid folk drift, but it's not long before the band launch into the 21 minute "Undone", a warbly slow build, backwards guitars and angelic vox, all over simple folk strum, the track gradually expanding, the drums not even entering the picture until more than halfway through, but when they do, and the guitars finally let loose, it's glorious, the vocals crooning beneath clouds of lightning bolt guitar, and jagged shards of effects drenched melody.
"Cracker Wrist" might be the heaviest of the bunch, but it starts out deceivingly dreamy, all layered drones and gauzy shimmer, but after a few minutes, the riffs come fast and furious, locked tight with the pounding drums, a mesmerizing bit of krauty drone rock heaviness, again the guitars going wild, and wrapping everything in tangles of melody and fragmented drug drenched shred. "The Stars Behind" is another ballady number, but it wouldn't be BP if it too wasn't eventually enveloped by ropy blasts of grinding guitars, and soaring sheets of blown out psych swirl, the record finally finishing off with the comparatively tame "Wayne's Tune", all warbly melodies, angular guitars, shuffling drums, no big build, no explosive catharsis, instead, just hazy and droney and dreamily druggy.
After some initial (and unfounded it seems) trepidation, this is turning out to be one of the best Bardo Pond records in ages. Killer, very metal, cover art too, all black and silver with some strange black shapes and a new spidery drippy BP metal style logo!
Originally released in 2004 on cd and long out of print, this killer collaboration between Charalambides guitarist Tom Carter and Philly psychedelic space rockers Bardo Pond finally gets the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, which includes a bonus track not on the original cd version. And, as well, it now comes with a bonus cd containing a live set recorded just days after this record was recorded.
The sound here is about as epic and awesome as you might expect, but what you might not expect is there are no psychedelic freakouts, each sidelong track is not a slow build to a heavy super rocking climax, instead, Carter and Bardo Pond explore a sound much more dirgey and bluesy and droney, smoldering and darkly propulsive, the music organic and alive, constantly shifting, and definitely dynamic, but more meditative and hypnotic. The first track sets the mood the multiple guitars all piling on tangles and spidery melodies, deftly woven into something much more raga-like, droney and mesmerizing, a sort of slow burn late nigh jam session vibe which suits both parties perfectly.
The B side is even more murky and minimal, abstract and atmospheric, super spacey and dreamily psychedelic, lush layered drones shift and shimmer, the band drifting druggily through space, which leads right into side C, also muted and minimal, but this time laced with some awesome processed psych guitar filigree, little swoops and shards, all beneath hazy ethereal vocals (their first appearance) and fluttering flute, the sound here the most Bardo Pond-like of the bunch, with Carter sounding right at home (so much so that it's hard to tell which guitar player is which). The final side is the most hushed and laid back of the bunch, meditative and tranquil, a sort of drifty dark folk, skeletal and softly reverbed, the song just shimmers contemplatively, total late night, come down psych drone bliss for sure.
The packaging is gorgeous, fancy two color silkscreened heavy jackets, included is a download coupon, and the live cd in its own sleeve with its own cover. LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
This is not a Bardo Pond record proper (although this disc does include one lengthy Bardo Pond track), but instead is a cd collecting some Bardo Pond related outings by various members and offshoots of this Philly psych rock combo, released as a special limited edition to celebrate the recent Terrastock 6 festival held in April in Rhode Island. Sublimation features all new music from Bardo Pond and Bardo satellites 500mg, Dechemia and Takeda.
We can't get enough of fuzzy soft focus druggy spacescapes and Bardo Pond as always deliver just that with the epic 17 minute long "Dual States", a slow burn, blissed out meander, shuffling rhythms, and all sorts of tangled effects-drenched guitars, a warm wash of tripped out loveliness. 500mg, who you might remember from a super limited 12" we carried a while back, is Michael Gibbons on guitars and effects, and explores a much more abstract world of sound, here it's a thick wall of crumbling distorted guitars, fuzzy intercepted radio broadcasts that drifts and breaks apart into soft tendrils of dreamy sunbaked guitar sparkle and warm warbly low end, a washed out shimmery swirl of Sonny Sharrock, Kyuss and Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain". Dechemia is Isobel Sollenberger and John Gibbons and their 4 minute track is a brief gypsy raga, shuffling percussion, simple Eastern guitars, and droning Tony Conrad like violins (played impressively by Sollenberger who usually handles the flute in BP!). So lovely. Finally, a twenty minute track from BP guitarist Clint Takeda, a massive, lumbering, rumbling slow burn, thick distorted guitar, spread out in a thick layer of barely shifting, resonating shimmer, peppered with brief stretches of soft melodic whisper, but for the most part a thick flow of throb and crunch, rumble and keen, mumbled vocals and murky riffs surface, but are quickly dismantled, and stretched out to become more layers, in Takeda's tarpit symphony. Awesome.
Limited to 500 copies, most of which were sold at Terrastock, but we managed to get a bunch for the store, although it's unlikely we'll be able to get more.
