BARDO POND: DILATE (2001)
1) Two Planes; 2) Sunrise; 3)
Inside; 4) Aphasia; 5) Favorite Uncle; 6) Swig; 7) Despite The Roar; 8) LB.; 9)
Hum; 10) Ganges.
Course correction: as the tires hit the gravel
on Set And Setting, somebody had enough sense to swerve the
steering wheel back to where it belongs. Not only are we back to the proper
running length (seventy minutes, just enough for the trip to be fruitful!), but
the echoey, multi-layered production is also back, returning us to those
intersecting seas of feedback that are Bardo Pond's prime reason for existence.
For starters, ʽTwo Planesʼ is probably the most
atmospheric thing they have done since Amanita.
The rhythm guitar / lead guitar / violin trio represents the ultimate in
psychedelic chemistry — as the atonal, discordant violins tear into your brain
like tiny scalpels, the chiming wah-wah lead phrase acts like some sort of
pain-neutralizing mystical balm, while the chugging rhythm chords gradually
gain in heaviness, culminating in a nightmarish acid rain — then dissipating
back into the initial quiet. The whole thing has a somber autumnal mood and should
probably best be heard on one of those gray, depressing days — better still if
it happens to take place on a distant planet.
Another impressive example of the band's
ever-increasing skill at building stuff up and then bringing it down is
ʽInsideʼ — starts out as your average upbeat, rhythmic indie pop-rocker, with
acoustic and electric guitars playing snippets of cuddly-cutesy melodies off
each other for a few minutes before growing, slowly and gradually, into a
psychonightmare. Technically, there is nothing new here when you take it in
context, but the contrast between the «innocent» beginnings and the hellish
developments is even more radical than it used to be, and the tempo at which
this is taken is also rather unusual for the band.
More questionable is the album's heavy
dependence on quiet acoustic patterns — most of the songs incorporate acoustic
rhythms, and some, alarmingly, never get beyond these rhythms (ʽFavorite Uncleʼ
sounds like James Taylor on elephant tranquilizers; ʽSwigʼ is «formally» redeemed
by incorporating raga elements, complete with tabla playing and all, but how
many Western artists playing bits of Indian ragas have we already had to endure
in these past fourty years?). As usual, Isobel is all over the place, and now
that we have so many quiet, unplugged parts to sit through, it is very much a
matter of how charmed you generally are by her vocalizations — personally, I
happen to think that Bardo Pond's neuro-stimulation could work more acutely if
some of these songs concentrated exclusively on guitar string and electronic
resonance.
Still, these are all minor problems compared to
what happens when we get to the real heavy stuff: ʽLB.ʼ is built upon sludgy
Sabbath-y riffs, while ʽGangesʼ flows on with such creaking and screeching
pain that its eleven minutes are just enough to make you eco-conscious — the song's
clashing guitar and violin lines are just about as dirty as the great river
itself. No huge surprises from either of these tracks, but both of them
manipulate the listener's brain just as effectively as any given highlight on
any given B.P. album.
In short, minor twists and defects aside, the
band returns to the tried and true, puts the cherry of ʽTwo Planesʼ on top, and
earns its regular thumbs up for the atmospherics, the craftsmanship,
and the dedication. Oh, and superb album art, too, quite in the grand old
psychedelic tradition, but with a nice modern-day scientific twist.
Check "Dilate" (MP3) on Amazon
Maybe this is a silly comment, but I wonder if reviewing trip music that you only listened to while sober is much like reviewing house music outside the context of a rave.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a silly comment.
DeleteNo, it isn't.
ReplyDelete