Bardo Pond Albums (12)
What The Critics Say
Another triumph, Bardo Pond's On the Ellipse proves that the band doesn't have to drastically change their music from album to album to keep it sounding fresh. Much like their former labelmates Mogwai, they continue to top themselves even if they're no longer among the most fashionable vanguard of underground rock. This album, Bardo Pond's sixth proper full-length, manages to be more abstract than 2001's Dilate, but it's just as accessible as that album, emphasizing the beauty of Isobel Sollenberger's vocals and flutes, as well as the restrained power of the band's formidable guitars and rhythm section. On the Ellipse is a much moodier experience, however, with most of its six songs hovering on the edge of reflective sadness and something darker. The outstanding album opener "JD" is an instant career highlight. Beginning with a relentless drone that switches between harsh and beautiful as it unfurls, the song lures the listener with five minutes of gentle acoustic guitars and Sollenberger's dreamy, brooding singing before unleashing a quintessentially Bardo Pond onslaught of distortion and drums. It's true that this description applies to most of the album -- and, indeed, most of the band's catalog -- but Pond remains the master of finding different ways to use extreme dynamics. "Dom's Lament" subtly shifts from quiet to loud while exploring the textures of its silken flutes, craggy guitars, and the quietly crisp drumming that holds it all together. The radiant, vaguely Indian "Test" floats on dense clouds of guitars and distant but powerful drums, lending it a beautiful but somewhat apocalyptic feel. "Every Man," a seven-minute epic, follows the more usual subdued brooding/slow-burning noise formula of the band's work, but the spare loveliness of its quiet sections and the washes of flutes in its louder parts reaffirm that nobody does stoned melancholy better than Pond. While the last third of On the Eclipse isn't as strong as the rest of the album, the post-modern hippie atmospherics of "Walking Clouds" and the dense, dour "Nights of Frogs" -- which recalls the band's Lapsed-era work -- don't detract from its hypnotic pull. While this album isn't radically different from the rest of Pond's work, the fact that it offers more of their compelling, challenging music is reason enough to celebrate it. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On its sixth album, Dilate, Bardo Pond cuts through the dense, smoky haze of Set and Setting and Lapsed to deliver its most refined collection to date. Even the title's drug reference (the band's first three releases were named after various mind-altering toads and mushrooms) is subtler, yet more evocative. Bardo Pond's roaring guitars, trippy flutes, and pummeling drums are all still in place, but now the group uses them sparingly instead of in heroic doses. Indeed, the album's best moments mix equally vast amounts of noise and space, giving Dilate an appropriately expansive feel. Isobel Sollenberger's double-tracked vocals take the lead on "Sunrise" and "Inside," a pair of spacy epics that hover around the edges of pop before veering into guitar maelstroms. The album also celebrates the prettier, emotional side of Bardo Pond's music, which the group has often obscured with clouds of distortion. A melancholy beauty permeates the string-driven instrumental "Two Planes" as well as rolling, folk-meets-fuzz ballads like "Aphasia" and "Favorite Uncle." These songs and Dilate's centerpiece, "Despite the Roar" (which shimmers like heat distortion before exploding into a trippy climax after five and half minutes), suggest vulnerability in a gauzy, abstract way that's more affecting than directly stating it. But the album also indulges Bardo Pond's interest in textures, as the Eastern-inspired motifs of "Swig" and subtle guitar washes and backward snares of "Hum" prove. However, it wouldn't be a Bardo Pond album without some glorious guitar excesses, and Dilate delivers with the heavy, wittily named "Lb.," a kinetic piece of stoner rock more in keeping with the group's two previous efforts. And though it's over 11 minutes long, the album closer "Ganges" manages to keep its mix of crunchy riffs and droning strings inventive throughout. Likewise, Dilate proves that the members of Bardo Pond keep finding ways to reinvent their sound, surpassing themselves each time they do. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Like its similarly titled predecessor, Vol. II was first sold on the road, in this case during the band's amazing tour with Mogwai in late spring 2001. As with Vol. I, Vol. II consists of outtakes and improvisational experiments recorded at the band's Lemur House rehearsal/base of operations in Philadelphia. Those who are fond of the group's sheer power live will likely find this release to their taste, though they should be warned that this is, after all, stuff Bardo Pond initially didn't think would go down easy on the real albums. Unlike some of the near white noise work on the first collection, though, Vol. II generally focuses on Bardo Pond's driftier, mellower side, occasionally calling to mind some of the stoned work from their Hash Jar Tempo collaboration with Roy Montgomery. "Precious Metal" begins the collection on a fairly even keel; a low-volume, slow-paced number with Sollenberger's vocals floating in and out of intelligibility. "Took the One" will appeal to those who loved Set and Setting's combination of Sollenberger beat poetry and atonal, off-kilter feel, squawking sax (or the equivalent) the wild card on this particular number. The possibly more-than-one-recording, possibly not, "Montanasacra" is more or less the central piece of the collection, a 15-minute long zone-out in the finest Bardo Pond style. There's no flute on evidence, or vocals, but otherwise it's all of the band getting in there, starting out as a quieter sort of exploration before pouring it on. It's not quite the same impact as being at a Bardo Pond show, but it's as good a stand-in as any. "How's Annie?" is almost as long and easily as strung out, but makes its point in a much more low-key fashion, with a near-silent ambient midsection that's defined practically by a mere ghost of feedback if nothing else. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The broken-down blues of Bardo Pond might just alter the world. The cilia-pulling strains of Set and Setting become utterly more infectious with each new spin. It's as though Bardo Pond is tugging the earth into their psychedelic orbit without anyone's knowledge or consent. The band is at their most effective on instrumental cuts like "Datura" and the violin-based "Cross Current." Here, sounds get their most stretched out and visual. On the whole, Set and Setting is another cohesive step forward, a slow parade of seductive experimentation and noise that crawls on rock's foundation and doesn't care what anyone thinks. This description could also apply to some of Sonic Youth's better music. Imagine then, Sonic Youth strewn across the desert on blotter acid; Set and Setting probably sounds something like that. ~ Matthew Kantor, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With each successive album, Bardo Pond continues to reshape and refine their monolithic sound, drawing ever closer to the oxymoronic ideal of controlled chaos that their brand of supreme noise seems to promise. Lapsed doesn't reach that holy grail, but it takes the group to a new level regardless, expanding into new dimensions of cacophony while sharpening the focus of their music to reflect an increasing emphasis on shape and form; the tension between the melodies of songs like "Pick My Brain," "Flux," and the epic closer "Aldrin" and the feverish blasts of noise which ultimately erupt from them is electrifying. The achievement of Lapsed is that for the first time, it's possible not merely to get lost in Bardo Pond's music, but to let it actually lead you somewhere as well -- certainly a trip well worth taking. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Not changing all that much but whipping up just as compelling a mix of drone, volume, and blissout as before, on Amanita the now officially-a-quintet Pond cranked the amps, switched on the pedals, and let fly with 11 monster songs. After a four-minute series of guitar feedback and fuzz, "Limerick" fully kicks in the album with a slow, stoned groove that's as big as one could want it to be, with Sollenberger's echoed vocals emerging out of somewhere while the slow shuffled beat builds higher and higher. Effortlessly combining psychedelic inspirations from Pink Floyd's original explorations to the more modern reachings into the beyond by My Bloody Valentine and Main, it's a simply stunning way to begin an equally stunning album. Many of the songs take a generally quieter approach before fully turning on the riff action. Two good examples are "Tantric Porno," where things are more understatedly shuffled before pumping up the volume and riff-out in the midsection, and the similarly paced "Yellow Turban," with its slow, downward crawl and wonderful guitar from the Gibbons brothers, alternately watery, weird, loud, and crumbling. Another song of note in this vein is the floating "Rumination," sounding not dissimilar at points to the crystalline melancholy also explored by labelmate and future collaborator Roy Montgomery. Otherwise, it's tune-up and zone-out to the max. "The High Frequency," for instance, steps away from lyrical meaning by burying what sounds like a random selection of spoken word snippets deep in the mix, just letting that wash of sound do what it does. Final number "RM" lets Sollenberger more clearly contribute her flute to the proceedings, while in general, whipping a last conclusive blast of sound to close out an astonishing and inspiring album. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
'Bufo Alvarius Amen 29:15'
Release Date 3/1/1995
Tracks 8
Label Drunken Fish
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
It starts with feedback, hum, and fuzz, then a heavy guitar riff emerging from the murk -- arguably Bardo Pond in a nutshell. Then again, enough other bands do the same thing, so why should the Pond get singled out? It's hard to pin down an exact reason, but whatever "it" is that a band needs to connect, they've got it. The slow, stony pace that "Adhesive" establishes for Bufo Alvarius Amen 29:15 continues through the album's remaining tracks, but in such a way that Bardo Pond rapidly become their own band and not merely the sum of their influences. There's something about the combination of lo-fi crunch, post-shoegaze bliss-out, stoner Quaalude head-nodding, and Loop/Spacemen 3-inspired drone that's truly unique. Standout moments abound: "Back Porch" has a series of instrumental breaks with brief, beautiful guitar lines, while on the soft jangle of "On a Side Street," various solos unfold slowly but surely in the background as lowly sung lyrics amble about. "Capillary River" has some astonishing, transcendent soloing in the middle of the song, building up to a brilliant final verse as Gibbons' vocals are lost in feedback and haze. The low-key shuffle/drone "Absence" is a good showcase for Sollenberger's singing -- sweeter and clearer here than might be expected. The CD version includes what might be the ultimate head-trip of them all, at least for this particular album: the 30-minute "Amen." The central part of the song is a fairly simple chord progression repeated again and again, but it's the various touches throughout the number -- the extra drones, watery deep reverb on the bass, and slow overall rhythm -- that make it the understated monster it is. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
