Summary.
Towering over every other space-rock band of the era, Philadelphia-based
Bardo Pond turned the acid-rock jam into a major art.
Bufo Alvarius (1995) coined a new form of music built around supersonic drones. The average piece was a rainstorm of guitar distortions, strident turbulences and catastrophic drumming, halfway between MC5's heavy blues and Spacemen 3's shoegazing. It was the soundtrack of a cosmic trauma that still haunts the firmament.
While no less brutal, Amanita (1996) revealed a spiritual element that harked back to both Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra and Pink Floyd's A Saucerful of Secrets; but nothing could be less religious than the apocalyptic chaos of Lapsed (1997). These albums were as musical as Einstein's relativity.
The members of Bardo Pond (guitarists John and Michael Gibbons, drummer Joe Culver, bassist Clint Takeda) also shone on two magnificent collaborations with guitarist Roy Montgomery, both credited to Hash Jar Tempo (110), Well Oiled (1997) and Under Glass (1999). The former, a seven-movement instrumental jam, is a cosmic hymn of monumental proportions, the psychedelic equivalent of a symphonic mass. Guitars compete for and concur to a universal "om", first running against each other, battling for the highest form of enlightenment, and then joining together in unison. The music emerges from spacetime warps, propelled by seismic rhythms, only to delve into deeper and deeper abysses, hypnotized by an unspeakable force. The second album was even more experimental, less dependent on guitars, and explicitly inspired by classical music. It alternated between glacial, imposing structures and chaotic noise collages, reconciling Wagner and Amon Duul, Verdi and Hawkwind, Bach and Red Crayola.
Full bio.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The Bardo Pond project was launched in Philadelphia by guitarist brothers John and Michael Gibbons. Their first singles, Trip Fuck (Drunken Fish, 1994) and Dragonfly (Compulsiv, 1995), were still rock songs, but stamped with a strongly noisy and spacey guitar style.
Their art of supersonic drones reaches its peak on Bufo Alvarius (Drunken Fish, 1995). Both the solemn pace and the torrential rain of distortion in Adhesive and the shrill turbulence of Vent (swarms of extraterrestrial insects) forge, through their confused and repetitive jamming, a harmony that is obviously dissonant on a microscopic scale but seems linear and melodic on a macroscopic scale; a harmony that is dynamically frenetic up close but appears static from afar. These two instrumentals alone summarize much of Bardo Pond’s vision.
Within the same dense fog of “dirty” chords, one finds the whispered chant of On A Side Street (a shadow of British shoegaze), the meatier riffs of Capillary River (hinting at MC5’s influence), and the sly scales of Absence (revealing Sonic Youth’s influence), sometimes with slightly more pronounced solos, other times with a semblance of drum crescendos, but mostly adhering to the rule of never straying far from the hallucination that serves as the focal point. The three coordinates of their sound (Sonic Youth, MC5, shoegaze) ultimately destabilize the rock song, leaving only a gaunt skeleton of arrangement. Overall, the sprawling guitar excursions and Joe Culver’s catastrophic drumming create a triumphant hymn to the imminence of sound.
The album reaches its glory in the half-hour instrumental Amen, which begins with a loop of pedestrian metallic clamor intertwined with the guitars’ heavy riffs and subtly transforms into a delicate flow of guitar reverbs, galactic bass rumblings (Clint Takeda), and flute trills (Isobel Sollenberger), with the drums entirely absent.
Traces of blues-rock devoted to Royal Trux (Back Porch and No Time To Waste) still appear on this record, though they would soon fade away.
The seven songs of the EP Big Laughing Jym (Compulsiv, 1995) take a more ambient approach, reminiscent of Earth, but above all benefit for the first time from professional production, giving the sound all the power the band is capable of (especially the driving cadence and deafening wah-wah of Dispersion and the wall of distortion in Hummingbird Mountain). The band’s Achilles’ heel is the vocals. Both the girl (on Chomp) and one of the boys (on Soaked) try to compete with the tidal wave of instruments and create high-tension psychodramas, but the result is difficult to digest.
Only self-indulgence prevents Amanita (Matador, 1996) from being the masterpiece the band was capable of. The trance is more punishing than ever, the intensity almost religious but grotesquely distorted. The ten minutes of Limerick are equivalent to the tail of Dark Star (Grateful Dead) combined with a Tibetan invocation and a hymn from Hosianna Mantra (Popol Vuh). High Frequency is a space-rock jam à la Hawkwind. The slow, punishing crescendo of RM is the quintessence of all rock guitar jams. With them, the genre is pushed toward a dizzying sonic abyss. Guitars coil over their riffs without even seeking melody, and the drums chase them with a terrible rhythm. Perhaps due in part to the rough production, which flattens the arrangements, the record is brutal and essential.
The sung tracks are less traumatizing. The syncopated blues-rock of Wank, however accomplished, and the soul ballad Be A Fish, with hard-rock jolts reminiscent of Nirvana, feel almost like a different band. Vocals find their proper role only amid the liquefied chords and cosmic echoes of Tantric Porno and in the psychotic suspense of early Pink Floyd in Yellow Turban. The album (almost an hour and fifteen minutes) remains a monument to their meticulous art of guitar counterpoint.
On the compilation Harmony of the Spheres (Drunken Fish, 1996), Bardo Pond contributed the suite Sangh Seriatim, a slow martial raga pierced by apocalyptic guitar roars that fracture into starlight glimmers.
Well Oiled (Drunken Fish, 1997), credited to Hash Jar Tempo, is a collaboration between Roy Montgomery and Bardo Pond, as is the subsequent Under Glass (Drunken Fish, 1999).
After the apocalyptic single Tests For New Swords (Siltbreeze, 1997), the album Lapsed (Matador, 1997) was released. Chaos remains their religion. The deafening, cacophonous, march-like storms of Tommy Gun Angel and Green Man are typical of their excess-driven psychedelia. The epic crescendo of Pick My Brain tries to give it structure, reason, and narrative. The panzer-like riffs of Flux match their delirium with the frenzies of Melvins and Earth. Straw Dog is the only track that continues their devolved blues-rock tradition, à la Royal Trux, and is perhaps the most devolved of their career.
Aldrin is the long suite of the album, seventeen minutes starting with a faint whisper from the singer over a carpet of dissonant chords, continuing with a hypnotic flow of intertwined and layered guitar improvisations, like a stretched and deformed Sister Ray.
What saves these compositions from apathy is a visceral tremor that keeps the volcano, from which the smoke rises, always alive.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
The abstract paintings of Set And Setting (Matador, 1999) are becoming
a little too abstract. This Time shows a purpose, but too many of these
tracks simply drift aimlessly.
The leftovers of those sessions are collected on the EP
Slab (Three Lobed, 2000), notably the nine-minute
Off The Precipice, wilder and crazier than anything on the album.
Having established themselves as possibly the greatest living psychedelic band,
and one of the greatest ever, Bardo Pond proceeded to undo their myth.
The new album (72 minutes of it),
Dilate (Matador, 2001),
boasted all the eccentric and extreme inspiration of their least lucid moments,
but seemed more
interested in writing (traditional) songs that stand on their own merits.
Sunrise unleashes a massive "acid" riff in the vein of stoner-rock and
vaguely reminiscent of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man.
Even the longer tracks dispense with the band's trademark chaos.
The slow crescendo of the seven-minute instrumental shuffle Two Planes,
the 12-minute Inside, that pits a gentle melody by the female
vocals against a cosmic boogie by the instruments, sounds like
Velvet Underground "lite".
Aphasia is simply the more and more emphatic repetition of a
simple waltz-like theme.
The eleven-minute Ganges is the noisier track, but sounds like
a mere catalog of the usual Bardo Pond arsenal of sounds.
The central triptych, made of
Favorite Uncle, Swig and Despite the Roar,
are folkish pieces that favor acoustic ambience.
At best, this song-oriented version of Bardo Pond drifts towards
Galaxie 500's ethereal eden.
But the band itself doesn't sound sure about the format to endorse.
LB is typical of their confusion: it starts off as a
supersonic jam a` la Hawkwind, then it
turns into a heavy blues a` la Blue Cheer,
then it mutates into a Led Zeppelin-ian
rock'n'roll, all the time punctuated by Isobel Sollenberger's
rather amateurish vocals.
The EP Purposeful Availment (2002) contains the 24-minute
Thalay Sagar.
On the Ellipse (All Tomorrow Parties, 2003) is in many ways the
nadir of their career.
Night of Frogs is an impressive showcase of psychological jamming,
but overall this album is tamed and shy. Bardo Pond seems ashamed of the
sonic potential and the emotional intensity of their live shows.
JD, Test and Every Man experiment new ways, but in Bardo
Pond's case "experiment" means "retreating".
4/23/03 (Three Lobed, 2004) documents an improvised session with
Tom Carter of the
Charalambides, six untitled pieces.
Cypher Documents I (3 Lobed, 2005) collects Bardo Pond rarities
(including a 31-minute version of From The Sky).
Bog / Pushed Out Into The Sun (Three Lobed, 2005) is a split album
with Detroit's band Buck Paco. Bardo Pond's half contains some of their most
incendiary performances.
The double-cd anthology
Selections: Volumes I-IV (All Tomorrow's Parties, 2005)
collects rarities.
And another rarity was the Internet-only collection of studio jams
Cypher Documents I (2005).
Archive 24 (aRCHIVE, 2006) is a live recording containing just two jams.
Sublimation (3 Lobed, 2006) collects pieces by side projects:
500MG, Dechemia (Isobel Sollenberger and John Gibbons) and Clint Takeda.
The highlights of Ticket Crystals (All Tomorrow's Parties, 2006) are
the 18-minute FC II, one of their trademark hypnotic psychedelic journeys,
and Montana Sacra II, that sounds as close to musique concrete as psychedelic rock ever got.
Alas, the shorter and simpler songs exhibit the same fragile inconsistency of
On the Ellipse.
Batholith (Three Lobed, 2008) and
Peri (Three Lobed, 2009)
collect rare and unreleased tracks.
Meanwhile they released two more rare EPs, the 14-minute Threefold (2009)
and the 16-minute Game Five And A Half (2009).
Michael Gibbons' side-project 500MG
was devoted to ambient psychedelia and psychedelic folk on
Vertical Approach (Galactic Zoo Disk, 2004) and
Apocatastisis (Three Lobed Recordings, 2007).
Bardo Pond's side-project Alasehir (the Gibbons) released the
lengthy instrumentals of Sharing The Sacred (Important, 2006) and
The Stone Sentinels (aRCHIVE, 2007).
Vapour Theories, another side-project by John and Michael Gibbons, applied
the psychedelic treatment to the progressive folk guitar of John Fahey on
Joint Chiefs (The Lotus Sound, 2006).
The double-disc
LSD Pond (aRCHIVE, 2008) documented a jam between Bardo Pond and the Japanese band LSD-March.
Alasehir, that debuted with Tormenting The Metals (Important Records, 2009), was a collaboration of John and Michael Gibbons with drummer Jason Kourkouni.
John and Michael Gibbons' new-age side emerged on
Monochord (Important Records, 2009), credited to
Alumbrados.
Moon Phantoms (Important Records, 2009) was a collaboration with Suishou No Fune.
Gazing At Shilla (Important, 2009) collects two lengthy instrumental
jams originally recorded between 2003-2006, Eight - Thousanders and Kali.
Adrop/ Circuit VIII (2020) collects two rarities:
the 34-minute Adrop (2006) and
the 44-minute Circuit VIII (2008).
Bardo Pond (2010) is a good display of both what they do best
(the avalanche-like 13-minute The Stars Behind)
and not so well (the self-indulgent 21-minute Undone).
Don't Know About You and Cracker Wrist show their dexterity at
recycling patterns that they have played a thousand times.
The album lasts 70 minutes but most of it could have been pared down to a
few minutes by removing repetition and imitation (sometimes self-imitation).
A split with Carlton Melton (Agitated, 2011) contains
one of their best freak-outs, Fallen.
Three improvised jams surfaced on Yntra (Latitudes, 2012), notably the
21-minute A Crossing.
Refulgo (2014) collects their early singles Die Easy/ Apple Eye (1994), Dragonfly/ Blues Tune (1994) and Trip Fuck/ Hummingbird Mountain (1994) as well as rarities and the 21-minute Sangh Seriatim (1996).
Shone Like A Ton (2014) reissues a rare 1992 cassette with
the 12-minute Luna Sway and the eight-minute Fox.
