The finest writing on Bardo Pond can be found spread across a pair of issues of Ptolemaic Terrascope from more than twenty years ago. The late Tony Dale – enthusiast, journalist, and proprietor of Camera Obscura Records – conducted a long interview with them surveying their then decade-long existence. It’s fascinating throughout, and surprising – they’re big fans of golf – but perhaps the most interesting part is the introduction where over a page and a half Tony recounted his personal experience of becoming familiar with and then observing the band in performance.
Bardo Pond tend to be categorised an improvisational, psychedelic rock band, labelling which can cover a multitude of sins, and doesn’t sufficiently emphasise their transcendent aspects. In describing their effect Tony suggested:“They alter brain chemistry by the alchemical effect of distressed sound alone, aspiring to become engineers of the soul’s passage to alternate states of consciousness”. It’s a pretty on-the-mark description of what the finest of sound sculptors achieve on their best days; I think back to experiences with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Dream Syndicate, a few others, and recognise those fleeting moments of complete calm in the centre of a maelstrom of sound to be what keeps us going back to that place in front of a stage.
In an afterword, written September 2001, Tony noted “they have also started making a spiffing series of limited edition CD releases (titled Vol.1 to Vol. n)”. This is the sort of thing you often come across, and think that was a good idea whatever became of it. But while, much over the years has changed; Bardo Pond remain, are now with Fire Records, and here we are, in February 2024, looking at Volume 9 of what been variously described as an archive or improvisational series.
Happily Volume 9 fits both categories featuring recordings from around 2005. They originate in jamming sessions involving the guitarist brothers John and Michael Gibbons, Isobel Sollenberger on flute, viola, and vocals, and sometime Kurt Vile/War On Drugs drummer Michael Zanghi. The four tracks are built from improvisations, building in stately, unhurried fashion, often abrasive, grindingly noisy but paradoxically pastoral, demanding gently but insistently the listener submit to their pace and measure.
‘Conjunctio’ opens proceedings in something akin to a primordial wind before becoming grounded by slow tabla around which the guitars distort, while somewhere in the distance an insinuating lowing reveals itself. ‘The Nine Doubts’ follows, arriving and plateauing more abruptly, with skittering jazzy percussion, then powering down into threatened chime in its final moments.
The rest of the album is given over to the two-part ‘War Is Over ’. ‘War Is Over 1’, at just over three minutes duration, seems a short though perfectly-formed melodic prelude, or even trailer, to its extended continuation. ‘War Is Over 2’, stretching across the whole of the album’s second side sets itself in for a long stay, opening with a sway of viola; it’ll be ten minutes before the guitars are truly unleashed, the drumming becomes frenzied, and the piece opens up into its true magnificence.
Three years ago Celestial Scuzz from the Gibbons brothers’ side project Vapour Theories provided solace in challenging times; Volume 9 though from a different era sounds very much like its companion and proves equally welcome.
Volume 9 is released by Fire Records on 23rd February. Order it here.
Tony Dale’s interview with the band.
Bucketfull Of Brains 