Hello, a change in rhythm here at Rho-Xs, from now on re-ups will be posted on Monday, audioplays on Tuesday and Roots will go to the Thursdays, Aetix, Grooves and Sundaze remain on the same weekday
F1 is at Monza this weekend Ferrari's home turf, they needed Raikonen in front of Hamilton and they succeeded, in the process breaking a 12 year old lap record (from the days F1 cars were 100kg lighter) it was so fast it even beat Vettel who had given his team mate a good tow. Tomorrow at the start expect Vettel to quickly pass Raikonen who isn't the greatest of starters. Hamilton will try to do the same but im sure Ferrari told Raikonen to do everything to prevent H bothering Vettel.
Today's Artists for the last time are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1991, and who are currently signed to London-based label Fire Records. Their music is often classified as space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegazing, noise or psychedelic rock. Some album titles have been derived from the names of esoteric psychedelic substances. Their sound has been likened to Pink Floyd, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine amongst others. .....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Bardo Pond was the flagship band of Philly's "Psychedelphia" space rock movement, which also included the likes of Aspera, Asteroid No. 4, the Azusa Plane, and tangentially the Lilys. Explicitly drug-inspired -- their titles were filled with obscure references to psychedelics -- they favored lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise. Hints of blues structure often cropped up, but Bardo Pond's earliest roots lay with avant-garde noisemakers from the realm of free jazz and from New York's no wave movement and downtown Knitting Factory scene. As their musicianship improved, the band gradually incorporated more traditional influences, but maintained their affinity for the outer fringes of music. Thus, their brand of space rock echoed not just genre staples like Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, but jam-happy Krautrockers (Amon Düül, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru) and experimental indie heroes (Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and especially Spacemen 3). With a steady stream of releases on Matador, the band stuck around long enough to draw comparisons to the spacier, noisier contingent of post-rockers, like Mogwai and Flying Saucer Attack.
Bardo Pond was formed in Philadelphia in 1989 by guitar-playing brothers Michael and John Gibbons, who'd long had an interest in making free-form noise, though they didn't pick up non-percussion instruments until attending art school in their twenties. Their first collaborator was guitarist Clint Takeda, a friend of Michael's who shared their enthusiasm for free music. Over the next two years, the band held twice-weekly jam sessions in their living room. At first, their aesthetic was one of naïve, unfettered freedom, but they slowly grew convinced of the need for some semblance of structure and proper instrumental technique. Takeda christened the band Bardo Pond in 1991, after a location described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. By that time, they'd picked up new members in vocalist/flute player Isobel Sollenberger and drummer Bob Sentz, both art academy classmates of the Gibbons brothers.
Over 1992-1993, Bardo Pond issued five self-released cassettes. No Hashish No Change Money No Saki Saki got remastered and rereleased in 2009 Toward the end of that run, Sentz quit the band to concentrate on his painting, and was replaced by Joe Culver. Takeda had begun to drift away from the band after graduation, moving first to New York and then to Seattle, which gave Michael Gibbons a chance to develop his guitar playing further. The band came to the attention of the small, singles-oriented Compulsiv label, and issued their first proper 7", "Die Easy" b/w "Apple Eye," in early 1994; another one, "Trip Fuck" b/w "Hummingbird Mountain," arrived not long after on the Drunken Fish imprint. A third single, "Dragonfly" b/w "Blues Tune," was out by the end of the year, and the group began work on its full-length debut for Drunken Fish. Clint Takeda, who'd kept in touch with the band, decided he wanted to return, and was brought back into the fold as the full-time bassist.
Bardo Pond issued its first album, Bufo Alvarius Amen 29:15, in early 1995; its title was taken from the scientific name for the notorious hallucinogenic toad found in the western U.S. The CD version appended "Amen 29:15," a near-half-hour jam that marked Takeda's recorded debut with the band. Later that year, Compulsiv released a CD EP of leftover tracks called Big Laughing Jym. Bufo Alvarius sparked the interest of Matador Records, which signed Bardo Pond and issued their breakthrough sophomore effort, Amanita, in 1996. Titled after a little-known hallucinogen from India, the album won critical praise and substantially heightened the band's profile, as did their increasingly improvisational live shows.
1997's Lapsed was a leaner, more focused effort that refined and sharpened Bardo Pond's sound; it too was greeted enthusiastically, with many fans still ranking it as the group's finest effort. That same year, the quintet's side project with New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery, Hash Jar Tempo, saw the release of the first of two albums; titled Well Oiled, it had been recorded during a 1995 jam session, and appeared on Drunken Fish. The results of another jam session, this one from 1998, were issued a year later as Under Glass. Bardo Pond itself also returned in 1999 with Set and Setting, which had second drummer Ed Farnsworth beginning to assume some of new family man Culver's duties. It also found Sollenberger debuting her new second instrument, violin.
2000 saw the band embarking on several side ventures from Matador; there was a 10" limited-edition EP on Three Lobed called Slab, which featured outtakes from the Set and Setting sessions, and they also inaugurated a series of self-released CD-Rs (sold through their website and on tours) with Vol. I. Like its followers, Vol. I was a collection of improvisational jams and home-studio outtakes. The band returned with its fourth Matador album, Dilate, in 2001; by now, Culver had officially retired from the band, leaving Farnsworth as the full-time drummer. A tour with Mogwai followed in support that spring, and Matador issued a small-scale EP culling performances from both bands. Three more volumes in the Bardo Pond CD-R series followed over 2002-2003, as well as another EP for Three Lobed, 2002's Purposeful Availment. In the meantime, Bardo Pond and Matador abruptly parted ways; after playing the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, the band signed with its spin-off label of the same name, and debuted with the full-length On the Ellipse in 2003. 2005 saw a wider release of the material from the CD-R series in Selections, Vols. 1-4, a two-disc collection of highlights. Ticket Crystals, a mellower, more atmospheric work, arrived the following year.
In 2012, the band issued Yntra, a three-song EP recorded for Southern Records spin-off label Latitudes while the band was on a stopover in London. They issued the two-track covers 12" Rise Above It All on Record Store Day in April of 2013, featuring readings of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" and Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." This was followed by the full-length Peace on Venus in October. Refulgo, a double LP compilation of tracks recorded prior to the release of Bufo Alvarius, appeared on Three Lobed in 2014. Two more Record Store Day EPs, Looking for Another Place and Is There a Heaven?, respectively appeared in 2014 and 2015, and were compiled on the triple-CD Record Store Day Trilogy. Also in 2015, the group shared a split-LP with Yo La Tengo as part of Three Lobed's Parallelogram series. In 2016, Bardo Pond collaborated with Acid Mothers Temple and Guru Guru, resulting in double-LP Acid Guru Pond. Bardo Pond's full-length Under the Pines followed in 2017, and Volume 8 appeared in 2018.
xxxxx
The members of Bardo Pond also operate a number of side projects.
500 mg is Michael Gibbons' solo project.
Alasehir is a psychedelic/stoner rock trio featuring Michael Gibbons, John Gibbons and Jason Kourkounis.
Alumbrados produces psychedelic folk/drone music and consists of Michael Gibbons, John Gibbons, Michael Zanghi and Aaron Igler.
Prairie Dog Flesh is more improvisational and rearranges the members of Bardo Pond with Takeda on vocals.
Hash Jar Tempo is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Roy Montgomery. A pun on Ash Ra Tempel, this project resulted from two "marathon jam/recording sessions" between the two parties and produced two albums: Well Oiled (released in 1997, recorded in 1995) and Under Glass (released in 1999, recorded in 1998).
LSD Pond is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Japanese psychedelic rock band LSD March. A self-titled album was released in 2008 and contains two discs with live recordings of two nights of jamming.
Moon Phantoms is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Japanese psychedelic rock band Suishou No Fune. Their self-titled album was released in 2009.
Third Troll features Michael and John Gibbons (guitars), Sollenberger (flute), and includes Kevin Moist (saxophone) and Aaron Igler (synths).
Baikal conducts free form psych experiments. The band consists of John Gibbons, Michael Gibbons, Clint Takeda and Jason Kourkonis. They have released a self-titled album on Important Records.
Vapour Theories is a duo of Michael and John Gibbons. They have released two albums: 'Decant' (self-released), and 'Joint Chiefs' (The Lotus Sound).
Jason Kourkounis participated as drummer 72 in the Boredoms' 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7, 2007, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York. He is also currently in Hot Snakes and The Night Marchers, and previously played drums for The Delta 72, The Burning Brides, and Mule (band).
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Philadelphia spectral travelers Bardo Pond had already gotten into some pretty heavy trips by the time their decidedly gentler sixth album, Ticket Crystals, arrived in 2006. While still brimming with sludgy psychedelic guitar work and mountainous percussion, Isobel Sollenberger's flute playing becomes the unexpected focal point of many of these extended jams, and the delay-laden textures spilling out of it demand more space than, say, a ripping seven-minute guitar solo. The entire album is drenched in dubby reverb and delay, tucking its more menacing tones in layers of starlit musical wandering and resonating the most on subdued numbers like the sprawling "Isle" and a hazy reading of the Beatles' "Cry Baby Cry."
Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (flac 517mb)
01 Destroying Angel 9:37
02 Isle 11:13
03 Lost Word 6:27
04 Cry Baby Cry 4:54
05 FCII 18:15
06 Moonshine 10:45
07 Endurance 5:09
08 Montana Sacra II 10:45
Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (ogg 163mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Batholith is a collection of six tracks that are near and dear to Bardo Pond but, for some reason or another, have never previously been released. That one-sentence description might lead one to think that these tracks are "outtakes" or cutting-room floor type material - neither conclusion could be further from the truth. The tracks included on Batholith range from previous live staples ("A Tune," one made 'famous' by opening Bardo's set at Terrastock II in San Francisco as joined by Roy Montgomery) to tracks the band recorded (in a different form) in sessions for John Peel ("Slip Away"). Collected as a whole, these tracks form a fluid and cohesive album. Batholith is not just an exciting moment for long time bardo pond fans, but a great jumping on point for folks who are relatively new to their craft. This album features new art by Isobel Sollenberger and John Gibbons.
Bardo Pond - Batholith (flac 242mb)
01 A Tune 7:33
02 Push Yer Head 3:31
03 Hypnotists 7:54
04 Splint 6:00
05 Slip Away 5:44
06 Ssh 10:11
Bardo Pond - Batholith (ogg 87mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
It's hard to believe that Bardo Pond has been making this kind of music for 20 years now. Every Pond album has its unique distincitiveness while maintaining the band's characteristic, punishingly heavy, blissed out air raid siren sound. The Gibbon's brothers right-left guitar attack is one of the all time glories of rock and roll; I'd love to be the guy who sells them their equipment, because it's hard to believe their amps can survive more than a single set or two of this kind of stuff. Isobel sounds like she hasn't aged a day, and her vocals on Sleeping are stunningly beautiful.
These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape. It's a dark, hypnotic aural trip where guitars scrape & claw their way through a textured, tumultuous and dangerous environment with a smooth purr & grunt of unstoppable force that's sometimes surprisingly gentleand kind, without sacrificing power. A place where a strange sort of dark beauty arises out of chaos to create a magical noise aura. This is a total return to form, and one of the most fantastic albums this year. Angry, triumphant, beautiful, unbelievable. This music is more than capable of blowing a hole in the sky, and breaking on through to whatever lies on the other side.
.
Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond (flac 482mb)
01 Just Once 7:19
02 Don't Know About You 4:27
03 Sleeping 8:38
04 Undone 21:02
05 Cracker Wrist 9:00
06 Await The Star 12:59
07 Wayne's Tune 15:52
Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond (ogg 162mb)
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After 22 years, Bardo Pond guitarists and siblings Michael and John Gibbons have developed a rapport few other teams can match. Despite having an instantly recognizable "sound," BP have evolved and grown, all while keeping their root aesthetic intact. Peace on Venus combines the sheer heaviness they employed on Yntra with the hypnotic pacing, textural control, and tasteful improvisation they displayed on their Record Store Day covers 12" of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" and Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." The Gibbons brothers, vocalist/flutist Isobel Sollenberger, bassist Clint Takeda, and drummer Jason Kourkounis have been appended by Aaron Igler on synth and electronics. "Kali Yuga Blues," commences with heavily distorted, melodic fingerpicking before Sollenberger enters unhurriedly, offering mantra-like vocals hovering just above the din as the band kicks into gear. The melody and her syncopated delivery recall Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Beautifully articulated guitar squalls preface big tom-tom and snare drum accents that signal the ends of lines. A sense of heavy, blown-out drifting feedback feels as if it will claim the melody -- but it never does. Even in the solos, it's more often than not just one or two being played repeatedly toward exploratory hypnotic effect. Sollenberger's flute swoops in here and there just to add to the depth and dimension. The two shorter cuts here -- "Taste" and "Fir" -- while still massively sonic exercises, are more intricate and formal in construction; Sollenberger's lovely unaffected singing makes them feel like lyric nocturnal lullabies from the end of the world. "Chance," an instrumental, is briefly introduced with acoustic guitar and flute. When the band comes in, Sollenberger plays a melody inside a carefully and slowly articulated chord/riff sequence. The tune unhurriedly develops, then twists and turns seemingly imperceptibly; it ends somewhere entirely other as the Gibbons' guitars and Takeda's monstrous bass improvs take turns wailing away. Throughout, her flute attempts to hold the thing together, creating a glorious tension. Closer "Before the Moon" is the most acid-drenched, abstract thing here; but it's also the tune that most closely resembles a 12-bar blues. Its deliberate stops and starts add form and function, but create a frame where flute and guitars can lift off in tandem exhorted by the drum kit. Fans of BP will no doubt delight in this masterful set, while newcomers will experience their brand of mind-melding consciousness expansion en masse.
Bardo Pond - Peace On Venus + Yntra EP (flac 501mb)
01 Sit Sleep 8:25
02 Cymbals 7:59
03 Before 10:07
04 Precious Metal 7:53
05 Alien Heat 9:21
06 Montana Sacra 15:40
07 Heaven 4:34
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With the Yntra EP, Bardo Pond sound heavier than usual, with three long-form jams recorded at Southern studios when the band was passing through London. Album opener "The Crawl" does just that, stretching in an anguished creep from radio static to a full-force psychedelic drone, with vocalist Isobel Sollenberger's buried howls falling in between busy guitar gurgles. The sounds push forward into menace, and there's a sense that the bandmembers are dropping crumbs along the path so they can find their way back out of the darkness, but by the song's conclusion it's clear there's no way back. "Side to Side" finds the band channeling some serious Black Sabbath energy with the heaviest, most distorted piece of the set. Album closer "A Crossing" is mellower, and drags a honey-covered bassline into a 20-minute space rock vortex that sounds like a blurrier, warmer Hawkwind.
01 The Cawl 7:02
02 Side To Side 7:55
03 A Crossing 20:30
Bardo Pond - Peace On Venus + Yntra EP (ogg 174mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
F1 is at Monza this weekend Ferrari's home turf, they needed Raikonen in front of Hamilton and they succeeded, in the process breaking a 12 year old lap record (from the days F1 cars were 100kg lighter) it was so fast it even beat Vettel who had given his team mate a good tow. Tomorrow at the start expect Vettel to quickly pass Raikonen who isn't the greatest of starters. Hamilton will try to do the same but im sure Ferrari told Raikonen to do everything to prevent H bothering Vettel.
Today's Artists for the last time are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1991, and who are currently signed to London-based label Fire Records. Their music is often classified as space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegazing, noise or psychedelic rock. Some album titles have been derived from the names of esoteric psychedelic substances. Their sound has been likened to Pink Floyd, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine amongst others. .....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Bardo Pond was the flagship band of Philly's "Psychedelphia" space rock movement, which also included the likes of Aspera, Asteroid No. 4, the Azusa Plane, and tangentially the Lilys. Explicitly drug-inspired -- their titles were filled with obscure references to psychedelics -- they favored lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise. Hints of blues structure often cropped up, but Bardo Pond's earliest roots lay with avant-garde noisemakers from the realm of free jazz and from New York's no wave movement and downtown Knitting Factory scene. As their musicianship improved, the band gradually incorporated more traditional influences, but maintained their affinity for the outer fringes of music. Thus, their brand of space rock echoed not just genre staples like Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, but jam-happy Krautrockers (Amon Düül, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru) and experimental indie heroes (Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and especially Spacemen 3). With a steady stream of releases on Matador, the band stuck around long enough to draw comparisons to the spacier, noisier contingent of post-rockers, like Mogwai and Flying Saucer Attack.
Bardo Pond was formed in Philadelphia in 1989 by guitar-playing brothers Michael and John Gibbons, who'd long had an interest in making free-form noise, though they didn't pick up non-percussion instruments until attending art school in their twenties. Their first collaborator was guitarist Clint Takeda, a friend of Michael's who shared their enthusiasm for free music. Over the next two years, the band held twice-weekly jam sessions in their living room. At first, their aesthetic was one of naïve, unfettered freedom, but they slowly grew convinced of the need for some semblance of structure and proper instrumental technique. Takeda christened the band Bardo Pond in 1991, after a location described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. By that time, they'd picked up new members in vocalist/flute player Isobel Sollenberger and drummer Bob Sentz, both art academy classmates of the Gibbons brothers.
Over 1992-1993, Bardo Pond issued five self-released cassettes. No Hashish No Change Money No Saki Saki got remastered and rereleased in 2009 Toward the end of that run, Sentz quit the band to concentrate on his painting, and was replaced by Joe Culver. Takeda had begun to drift away from the band after graduation, moving first to New York and then to Seattle, which gave Michael Gibbons a chance to develop his guitar playing further. The band came to the attention of the small, singles-oriented Compulsiv label, and issued their first proper 7", "Die Easy" b/w "Apple Eye," in early 1994; another one, "Trip Fuck" b/w "Hummingbird Mountain," arrived not long after on the Drunken Fish imprint. A third single, "Dragonfly" b/w "Blues Tune," was out by the end of the year, and the group began work on its full-length debut for Drunken Fish. Clint Takeda, who'd kept in touch with the band, decided he wanted to return, and was brought back into the fold as the full-time bassist.
Bardo Pond issued its first album, Bufo Alvarius Amen 29:15, in early 1995; its title was taken from the scientific name for the notorious hallucinogenic toad found in the western U.S. The CD version appended "Amen 29:15," a near-half-hour jam that marked Takeda's recorded debut with the band. Later that year, Compulsiv released a CD EP of leftover tracks called Big Laughing Jym. Bufo Alvarius sparked the interest of Matador Records, which signed Bardo Pond and issued their breakthrough sophomore effort, Amanita, in 1996. Titled after a little-known hallucinogen from India, the album won critical praise and substantially heightened the band's profile, as did their increasingly improvisational live shows.
1997's Lapsed was a leaner, more focused effort that refined and sharpened Bardo Pond's sound; it too was greeted enthusiastically, with many fans still ranking it as the group's finest effort. That same year, the quintet's side project with New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery, Hash Jar Tempo, saw the release of the first of two albums; titled Well Oiled, it had been recorded during a 1995 jam session, and appeared on Drunken Fish. The results of another jam session, this one from 1998, were issued a year later as Under Glass. Bardo Pond itself also returned in 1999 with Set and Setting, which had second drummer Ed Farnsworth beginning to assume some of new family man Culver's duties. It also found Sollenberger debuting her new second instrument, violin.
2000 saw the band embarking on several side ventures from Matador; there was a 10" limited-edition EP on Three Lobed called Slab, which featured outtakes from the Set and Setting sessions, and they also inaugurated a series of self-released CD-Rs (sold through their website and on tours) with Vol. I. Like its followers, Vol. I was a collection of improvisational jams and home-studio outtakes. The band returned with its fourth Matador album, Dilate, in 2001; by now, Culver had officially retired from the band, leaving Farnsworth as the full-time drummer. A tour with Mogwai followed in support that spring, and Matador issued a small-scale EP culling performances from both bands. Three more volumes in the Bardo Pond CD-R series followed over 2002-2003, as well as another EP for Three Lobed, 2002's Purposeful Availment. In the meantime, Bardo Pond and Matador abruptly parted ways; after playing the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, the band signed with its spin-off label of the same name, and debuted with the full-length On the Ellipse in 2003. 2005 saw a wider release of the material from the CD-R series in Selections, Vols. 1-4, a two-disc collection of highlights. Ticket Crystals, a mellower, more atmospheric work, arrived the following year.
In 2012, the band issued Yntra, a three-song EP recorded for Southern Records spin-off label Latitudes while the band was on a stopover in London. They issued the two-track covers 12" Rise Above It All on Record Store Day in April of 2013, featuring readings of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" and Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." This was followed by the full-length Peace on Venus in October. Refulgo, a double LP compilation of tracks recorded prior to the release of Bufo Alvarius, appeared on Three Lobed in 2014. Two more Record Store Day EPs, Looking for Another Place and Is There a Heaven?, respectively appeared in 2014 and 2015, and were compiled on the triple-CD Record Store Day Trilogy. Also in 2015, the group shared a split-LP with Yo La Tengo as part of Three Lobed's Parallelogram series. In 2016, Bardo Pond collaborated with Acid Mothers Temple and Guru Guru, resulting in double-LP Acid Guru Pond. Bardo Pond's full-length Under the Pines followed in 2017, and Volume 8 appeared in 2018.
xxxxx
The members of Bardo Pond also operate a number of side projects.
500 mg is Michael Gibbons' solo project.
Alasehir is a psychedelic/stoner rock trio featuring Michael Gibbons, John Gibbons and Jason Kourkounis.
Alumbrados produces psychedelic folk/drone music and consists of Michael Gibbons, John Gibbons, Michael Zanghi and Aaron Igler.
Prairie Dog Flesh is more improvisational and rearranges the members of Bardo Pond with Takeda on vocals.
Hash Jar Tempo is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Roy Montgomery. A pun on Ash Ra Tempel, this project resulted from two "marathon jam/recording sessions" between the two parties and produced two albums: Well Oiled (released in 1997, recorded in 1995) and Under Glass (released in 1999, recorded in 1998).
LSD Pond is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Japanese psychedelic rock band LSD March. A self-titled album was released in 2008 and contains two discs with live recordings of two nights of jamming.
Moon Phantoms is a collaboration between Bardo Pond and Japanese psychedelic rock band Suishou No Fune. Their self-titled album was released in 2009.
Third Troll features Michael and John Gibbons (guitars), Sollenberger (flute), and includes Kevin Moist (saxophone) and Aaron Igler (synths).
Baikal conducts free form psych experiments. The band consists of John Gibbons, Michael Gibbons, Clint Takeda and Jason Kourkonis. They have released a self-titled album on Important Records.
Vapour Theories is a duo of Michael and John Gibbons. They have released two albums: 'Decant' (self-released), and 'Joint Chiefs' (The Lotus Sound).
Jason Kourkounis participated as drummer 72 in the Boredoms' 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7, 2007, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York. He is also currently in Hot Snakes and The Night Marchers, and previously played drums for The Delta 72, The Burning Brides, and Mule (band).
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Philadelphia spectral travelers Bardo Pond had already gotten into some pretty heavy trips by the time their decidedly gentler sixth album, Ticket Crystals, arrived in 2006. While still brimming with sludgy psychedelic guitar work and mountainous percussion, Isobel Sollenberger's flute playing becomes the unexpected focal point of many of these extended jams, and the delay-laden textures spilling out of it demand more space than, say, a ripping seven-minute guitar solo. The entire album is drenched in dubby reverb and delay, tucking its more menacing tones in layers of starlit musical wandering and resonating the most on subdued numbers like the sprawling "Isle" and a hazy reading of the Beatles' "Cry Baby Cry."
Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (flac 517mb)
01 Destroying Angel 9:37
02 Isle 11:13
03 Lost Word 6:27
04 Cry Baby Cry 4:54
05 FCII 18:15
06 Moonshine 10:45
07 Endurance 5:09
08 Montana Sacra II 10:45
Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (ogg 163mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Batholith is a collection of six tracks that are near and dear to Bardo Pond but, for some reason or another, have never previously been released. That one-sentence description might lead one to think that these tracks are "outtakes" or cutting-room floor type material - neither conclusion could be further from the truth. The tracks included on Batholith range from previous live staples ("A Tune," one made 'famous' by opening Bardo's set at Terrastock II in San Francisco as joined by Roy Montgomery) to tracks the band recorded (in a different form) in sessions for John Peel ("Slip Away"). Collected as a whole, these tracks form a fluid and cohesive album. Batholith is not just an exciting moment for long time bardo pond fans, but a great jumping on point for folks who are relatively new to their craft. This album features new art by Isobel Sollenberger and John Gibbons.
Bardo Pond - Batholith (flac 242mb)
01 A Tune 7:33
02 Push Yer Head 3:31
03 Hypnotists 7:54
04 Splint 6:00
05 Slip Away 5:44
06 Ssh 10:11
Bardo Pond - Batholith (ogg 87mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
It's hard to believe that Bardo Pond has been making this kind of music for 20 years now. Every Pond album has its unique distincitiveness while maintaining the band's characteristic, punishingly heavy, blissed out air raid siren sound. The Gibbon's brothers right-left guitar attack is one of the all time glories of rock and roll; I'd love to be the guy who sells them their equipment, because it's hard to believe their amps can survive more than a single set or two of this kind of stuff. Isobel sounds like she hasn't aged a day, and her vocals on Sleeping are stunningly beautiful.
These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape. It's a dark, hypnotic aural trip where guitars scrape & claw their way through a textured, tumultuous and dangerous environment with a smooth purr & grunt of unstoppable force that's sometimes surprisingly gentleand kind, without sacrificing power. A place where a strange sort of dark beauty arises out of chaos to create a magical noise aura. This is a total return to form, and one of the most fantastic albums this year. Angry, triumphant, beautiful, unbelievable. This music is more than capable of blowing a hole in the sky, and breaking on through to whatever lies on the other side.
.
Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond (flac 482mb)
01 Just Once 7:19
02 Don't Know About You 4:27
03 Sleeping 8:38
04 Undone 21:02
05 Cracker Wrist 9:00
06 Await The Star 12:59
07 Wayne's Tune 15:52
Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond (ogg 162mb)
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After 22 years, Bardo Pond guitarists and siblings Michael and John Gibbons have developed a rapport few other teams can match. Despite having an instantly recognizable "sound," BP have evolved and grown, all while keeping their root aesthetic intact. Peace on Venus combines the sheer heaviness they employed on Yntra with the hypnotic pacing, textural control, and tasteful improvisation they displayed on their Record Store Day covers 12" of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" and Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." The Gibbons brothers, vocalist/flutist Isobel Sollenberger, bassist Clint Takeda, and drummer Jason Kourkounis have been appended by Aaron Igler on synth and electronics. "Kali Yuga Blues," commences with heavily distorted, melodic fingerpicking before Sollenberger enters unhurriedly, offering mantra-like vocals hovering just above the din as the band kicks into gear. The melody and her syncopated delivery recall Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Beautifully articulated guitar squalls preface big tom-tom and snare drum accents that signal the ends of lines. A sense of heavy, blown-out drifting feedback feels as if it will claim the melody -- but it never does. Even in the solos, it's more often than not just one or two being played repeatedly toward exploratory hypnotic effect. Sollenberger's flute swoops in here and there just to add to the depth and dimension. The two shorter cuts here -- "Taste" and "Fir" -- while still massively sonic exercises, are more intricate and formal in construction; Sollenberger's lovely unaffected singing makes them feel like lyric nocturnal lullabies from the end of the world. "Chance," an instrumental, is briefly introduced with acoustic guitar and flute. When the band comes in, Sollenberger plays a melody inside a carefully and slowly articulated chord/riff sequence. The tune unhurriedly develops, then twists and turns seemingly imperceptibly; it ends somewhere entirely other as the Gibbons' guitars and Takeda's monstrous bass improvs take turns wailing away. Throughout, her flute attempts to hold the thing together, creating a glorious tension. Closer "Before the Moon" is the most acid-drenched, abstract thing here; but it's also the tune that most closely resembles a 12-bar blues. Its deliberate stops and starts add form and function, but create a frame where flute and guitars can lift off in tandem exhorted by the drum kit. Fans of BP will no doubt delight in this masterful set, while newcomers will experience their brand of mind-melding consciousness expansion en masse.
Bardo Pond - Peace On Venus + Yntra EP (flac 501mb)
01 Sit Sleep 8:25
02 Cymbals 7:59
03 Before 10:07
04 Precious Metal 7:53
05 Alien Heat 9:21
06 Montana Sacra 15:40
07 Heaven 4:34
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01 The Cawl 7:02
02 Side To Side 7:55
03 A Crossing 20:30
Bardo Pond - Peace On Venus + Yntra EP (ogg 174mb)
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