Bardo Pond - On the Ellipse (ATP) 2003
Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (ATP) 2006
The two elements that seem to define all of Bardo Pond's albums are density and clarity. When those two things are in balance the albums tend to soar; when they aren't... have you ever seen an oily seagull? On the Ellipse wobbles a little in places... with most tracks medium length and with moments of greatness, but never truly airborne. Ticket Crystals is a return to greatness... the shorter tracks have the Sabbath-grime riffs to drive them and there's even a not-embarrassing Beatles cover ("Cry Baby Cry"). The tour-de-force and, conversely, also the track that most non-believers will hate is the nearly 20 minute "FCII"... epic space rock done right.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bark Psychosis - Hex (Caroline) 1994
This took me a long time to come across... I could've ordered it at any time, but there's something about randomly encountering an album you keep an eye out for. Bark Psychosis is one of those legendary bands that get referred to as influential despite having a tiny, elusive back catalogue (this is their only full length), and a sound that some credit as the roots of what became after referred to as "post-rock." To hear it now, after a decade of music that has used elements of their light-but-portentous atmosphere and abstracted or absent vocals, some of the initial impact the band possessed is sublimated. Still you can hear where bands on labels like Kranky cribbed some of their influences. They reformed in some incarnation a couple of years ago, but I've not had a chance to sample any of their new work.
++++++++++++++++++++
Barkmarket - Vegas Throat (American) 1992
Barkmarket - Gimmick (American) 1993
Barkmarket - Lardroom (American) 1994
Barkmarket - L.Ron (American) 1996
Having gone from being almost exclusively a metalhead until the mid-80s out into a broader spectrum of sound thereafter I've always had a hard time going back to loud music... it seems regressive... in more ways than one. I was turned off by the move into glam/hair metal that the popular scene was devolving into, and consequently I missed the birth of the whole Metallica/Megadeth speed metal trope (I was listening to The Cure, The Smiths and... er, The Cult (sigh). There were bands that pulled free of the grunge ooze like Soundgarden and the rise of Stoner Rock with post-Sabbath bands like Kyuss and Monster Magnet... and simultaneously there was the accursed nü metal of the spelling impaired groups like Korn and Limp Bizkit. Some of these were great (many were not), but what lacked was a certain freshness... less nostalgia more noise. While Tool was a fine alternative, there was a certain whiff of Prog-Rock about them I found troubling. I happened upon Barkmarket and my questing was (briefly) at an end. The band was fronted by guitarist/singer D.Sardy who looked a little like a hairy high school chemistry professor but sounded like Conan smashing portable televisions with an electric banjo. Vegas Throat was a protean version of their sound that lacked a low-end ooomph that came with Gimmick and L.Ron. When all the pieces snapped together what you had was a band that could channel its stream-of-consciousness rage through a guitar that sounded like it was held together with Xmas lights, gaffer tape and Slinkys, a bass like a rubber coated bee hive and drums that could be medium size oil drums full of agate marbles. The music was exhausting and exhilirating to listen to... and not many people did, apparently, as Sardy packed it in and moved into the role of guitar for hire (playing on Frank Black's first solo album) and producer/mixer, recording albums for everyone from Slayer to Rufus Wainwright. What?! Yes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Barry Black - Tragic Animal Stories (Alias) 1997
One of the many side projects of Eric Bachmann... singer/guitarist for the aforementioned Archers of Loaf. This is the second of two recordings under this name. The instrumental tracks most closely resemble the kind of incidental/transitional music you get in indie films... you know, when the quirky hero/loser is driving his bike across town to meet a potential girlfriend at a martini bar... but accidentally he collides into a rack of clothing being escorted across a street by a harried intern at a fashion house... and she is intially furious with him and sure that she will be fired for this... which she is, and she forms a grudge and then a plan for revenge that somehow results in the two crazy kids finding true love at the end of the film. That kind of music.
No comments:
Post a Comment