Bardo Pond

A double LP package from Bardo Pond, combining two of their super rare jam volumes on vinyl for the first time. A further edition in this celebrated series,  ‘Volume 4’ and ‘Volume 5’ feature more freeform improvisational pieces from the hypnotic Philadelphia outfit.

Capturing the raw essence of the band, whose fearless exploration blurs the lines between structure, chaos, melody and noise. Bardo Pond’s music traverses space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegaze, noise, Krautrock and psychedelia. ‘Volume 4’ hails from self-released sessions recorded in January 2002, its five tracks include the supremely tripped out heaviness of ‘K2’ and the balance-shifting ‘New Drunks (Revisited)’ with Isobel Sollenberger’s exquisite and, frankly, quite disturbing vocal. They’re shorter interrogations of sound by Bardo terms, almost succinct in their mesmerising riffage and off-kilter arrangements. By contrast, ‘Volume 5’ consists of two lengthy mantras recorded between 2000 and 2004 and released as the tape spool spiralled out. ‘FUFO’ sounds like Cluster unravelling with Merzbow mixing, a post-industrial slew of hypnotic proportions, while ‘Monarch’ begins as a Current 93-like neo-folk mood piece before evolving into a wailing slice of drone-drenched Americana by way of a Velvets’ jam. ”We were pushing improvisations as far as we could. It was glorious having the studio. The more that our heads were spinning after a session, the better we knew that session would sound when we listened back. We were getting together two nights a week, usually three or four hours working on material and songs and the other half the time letting loose. Volumes 4 and 5 gather together some of these improvisations, and one early song that we felt like doing again.” Adds Michael Gibbons of Bardo Pond. A1. Take What You Need A1. Pangolin Dance A2. K2 A2. Narmada B1. New Drunks (Revisited) C1. Fufo D1. Monarch

Release Date: May 23, 2025

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From Matador-

Melt Away, the new double LP compilation, catalogues late-’90s rarities and outtakes from a creative apex in Bardo Pond’s career. Of these, album highlight ‘The Trail’, originally recorded for the 1997 compilation What’s Up Matador, dissolves six minutes into a moment. Blink once and you’ll miss it. Blink twice and the wallpaper might begin to move.

Black Bardo Pond T-shirt available here – bardopondmusic.bandcamp.com/merch/black-bardo-pond-t-shirt

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released August 8, 2024

2024, Matador Records

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From the Matador site-

Following not-so-hot on the heels of a long-since sold out 2021 repress of Bardo Pond’s monolithic Matador label debut, ‘Amanita,’ we are pleased to announce a much overdue reissue of the Philadelphia group’s gritty psychedelic milestone, ‘Set And Setting’ (1999). Out October 25th, the record has been fully remastered and returns pressed on purple vinyl.

‘Set and Setting’ will be accompanied by a new double LP compilation, Melt Away, cataloging late-’90s rarities and outtakes from a creative apex in the band’s career, and released together on vinyl for the first time. Of these, album highlight ‘The Trail’, originally recorded for the 1997 compilation What’s Up Matador, dissolves six minutes into a moment. Blink once and you’ll miss it. Blink twice and the wallpaper might begin to move.

The songs on Bardo Pond’s first two Matador releases – ‘Amanita’ and ‘Lapsed’ – were largely worked up at home and then recorded on the clock at a professional studio. On ‘Set and Setting,’ the band chose to work out of its home base, Lemur House, and the end result benefited from the open-ended DIY flexibility. “It was closer to the heart of what we do,” says guitarist Michael Gibbons. “There was more improvisation, but also more culling of material. We had more time to find things that jumped out at us, go places we wouldn’t normally go, do investigative work. I think there was a shift. It’s just somehow a more true experience of Bardo Pond.”

Fire Records

TRACKLIST

A1 – Kali Yuga Blues
A2 – Taste
A3 – Fir

B1 – Chance
B2 – Before the Moon

DESCRIPTION

10^th anniversary clear, black and white splatter vinyl reissue of ‘Peace on Venus’ by Bardo Pond, Philadelphia’s foremost purveyors of psychedelic rock. Includes ‘Kali Yuga Blues’, a true behemoth of a song and a shining example of the band’s ecstatic intensity.

Delving deep in to their subconscious to bring it to the conscious, the band’s 2013 effort dazzles, with their gift for heavy riffs laced with soaring vocals and swathes of sound. Bardo Pond has the outward specifications of a rock band but the rivers that converge into the band’s oneiric flow have their headwaters in the outlands of ecstatic jazz, free noise and the avant-garde.

The recording process of ‘Peace On Venus’ used the principle of the Quintessence, which is a principle cited by the 16th Century physician Paracelsus, who noted: “Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but in the virtue thereof, and this is the principle of the Quintessence, which reduces, say 20 lbs. of a given substance into a single Ounce, and that ounce far exceeds the 20 lbs. in potency. Hence the less there is of body, the more in proportion is the virtue thereof.”

“Obviously, Bardo Pond are the greatest band in the world” Vice

Somewhere between the ‘Dilate’ album in 2001 (“a combination of Kyuss and Spacemen 3” NME) and ‘On the Ellipse’ in 2003 (“Nowhere is feedback more melancholic, more emotive, than that fashioned by Bardo Pond” Brainwashed), Bardo Pond transcended into a mantra-like, multi-layered, cross-dimensional, wah wah powered nirvana.

In some circles, they say, spaceships wafted them away and they only returned some-time later, mind-altered and bedraggled, ears ringing. But that is the stuff of supposition.

As we already know, there is no ‘off’ switch on Bardo Pond, they are never knowingly unplugged. Indeed, the modal evolution of their sound continues unabated.

Out February 3, 2023 Three Lobed Recordings

i have often wondered what exactly the true roots were for bardo pond. for a band with such a unique sound, where did it all come from? in a recent discussion with michael gibbons he was quick to tell me that their earliest true influences were sabbath, free jazz and no wave. using these sounds as the initial seeds, the band coalesced and poked their heads out into the world and discovered the rest of what would guide them as a unit. their early palette quickly added shades from early dinosaur jr, my bloody valentine, charalambides, spacemen 3, the entire siltbreeze catalog, sonic youth, skullflower and the sun city girls. the combination made from such diverse influences is what the band had in their collective head between june and december of 1993 when they recorded no hashish, no change money, no saki saki and released it as a cassette, partially in an effort to secure more gigs. this is a snapshot of bardo pond in its earliest form – then a quartet consisting of isobel sollenberger (flute, vocals), joe culver (drums) and michael and john gibbons on guitars – crawling onto land and developing its own legs.

i like to fantasize about the room where they all played this material live. in my mind i envision pot smoke wafting throughout, possibly old area rugs on the floor. there should to be a collection of telling and ragged posters/art on the walls, maybe a living room situation, a couch and old chair. i can see curtains hanging over the windows letting in small amounts of sunlight, a lone floor lamp. using this environment as a source, i see the quartet taking their time winding in and out of a morass of sound where a melody emerges from the dissonance converging around it, simultaneously swallowing it up and spewing it forward, isobel’s voice being the center of this gravitational pull, the swirl that brings you in. from there one of the guitars takes off echoing the vocals while the other guitar is shimmering around from all sides, sliding and slurping with the rhythm and cymbals splashing with no hurry. this is the sound of freedom, the sound of bardo pond. this album contains the DNA of all their future music, from the low dirge to the sexy laid-back choking of beautiful vocals lost and found amongst wavering vibrations of rising and falling drone. sometimes isobel’s vocals are a guide, a way through, as in the song “rupture”, a thing that peaks out occasionally above the dense cloud of uncertainty and psychedelic wah noise. they are there to remind you that don’t know where we’re going but that feels good. no hashish… emanates the chaotic splendor of when a band first starts out and aren’t sure what they’re doing, that magical and best kind of energy which simply cannot be repeated. they went on with their following records to refine a special and unique form of mind expansion/explosion based on equal parts of beautiful chaos and repressed noise and you can see all of that start right here. this album is for me like all of bardo pond’s catalog, a cleanse of the mind and soul, a soundtrack for today’s “great resignation” and the ultimate way to turn on and on and on…

-kim gordon, los angeles 2022-

this 30th anniversary edition of no hashish, no change money, no saki saki represents the album’s first widespread physical release. it was remastered from the original source in 2022 by carl saff. it will be pressed to 140 gram 2×12″ vinyl in virginia by furnace mfg (primarily on black vinyl but also a limited quantity of translucent green vinyl) and housed within a full color gatefold jacket featuring period appropriate photography from the bardo archives.

Watch Archived Show-https://www.twitch.tv/videos/760705757?filter=archives&sort=time