BARDO POND

The creeping opener Destroying Angel starts silky but immediately a thunderstorm is coming up with droning dual guitars. Flute and spaced out vocal contributions are trying to compete/prevail. An emotional suspense-packed track which makes curious for more. Isle shines as a heartbreaking melancholic ballad with flute and acoustic guitar. Over the course of time heavy psych guitars are faded in more and more which makes this song contradictory and very interesting. This is all headed by Isobel Sollenberg's compelling voice, coupled with hall effects. Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) comes into my mind immediately. Lost Word is hard to digest because weird and containing some dissonance.

Most of the tracks are developed during live gigs I'm quite sure for to get really comfortable with the recordings. So to say for FC II which is nominated for the album highlight by me - a gliding meandering thing with a length of more than 18 minutes drifting through time and space. Creepy long-drawn-out (cello?) contributions and a wonderful psychedelic guitar - with a background which is near to a dub groove - very hypnotic with gradual changes and something for krautrock fans for sure.

Is there any further need to accentuate that this is not for everyone's taste? 'Ticket Crystals' is appealing to fans who like to hear music from the psych/krautrock and post/math rock border with an avantgarde approach and don't have problems with some dissonant elements. Or when you prefer to listen to noise rock bands like Sonic Youth then you're probably able to slump into their cosmos and may enjoy a very special performance.

After a while I wanted to listen to the band again to see if they will work out this time and the first songs was still hard to listen to, but now I payed more attention to the music instead of whining and complaining about the noise and I started to enjoy them. After the second song I was hooked and then the rest of the album was very easy listening and enjoyable. Isobel's singing is very nice and plesant and it often reminds me of Jefferson airplane's Grace Slick. She sings heavenly even though the music doesn't really reflects that. The music is rather slow and while one guitar is making alot of atmospheric drones and another is making some good melodies, the bass and the drums are very present in the overall sound delivering great rythim lines that keep the songs alive and interesting. All of those elements are perfectly well mixed and the results are interesting and good! And thus Bardo Pond's sound is made. Their space rock sound is made of hipnotic and repetetive riffs and melodies that puts you in a trance and with the help of the distortion as well.

There are alot of great songs and I can only think of one bad song in the whole album, but of course the best song on the album is the 14 minute Aldrin. The song starts very nice and slowly with a repetetive melody and Isobel whispering the lyrics. When the song has 3 minutes left they change the pace a little faster. It's guaranteed that you'll be nodding your head from start to finish with this song. Very chilled, very smooth and a perfect ending to a great album. By the end of the song you'll get used to the distortion and drones and it'll leave you wanting for more.

To sum it up this isn't a very accesible band and it's mainly because of all of the noise, but after you get used to it then you'll enjoy every single minute of it. Recommended for fans of Krautrock, space rock and everything in between.