Altered Zones

By Michael C. Powell

MP3: Bardo Pond: "Don't Know About You"

Bardo Pond makes no compromises. In their two decades of existence, the Philadelphia collective has never succumbed to trends or altered their sound to fit the times. Sure, they sometimes funnel free jazz structures, Laurel Canyon folk, and Baroque pop flavors into their trademark, sludgy acid rock concoction. But by and large, Bardo Pond is a constant, a steady source of steady cosmic riffage, cavernous flute meditations (courtesy of the free-spirited Isobel Sollenberger), and guitars caked so thick in primordial ooze, they're practically impenetrable to light. Michael Gibbons is one half of Bardo Pond's monolithic guitar machine (with his brother John), and he was nice enough to chat with me over the phone about not reading too much into titles and making music for no one but yourself. The idea for a Bardo Pond and Mogwai collaboration may have also taken root in our conversation, fingers crossed.

AZ: Bardo Pond has been around for 20 years now, but you've remained pretty loyal to a single sound. How do you keep things feeling fresh?

Michael: It's always given us the same buzz. It's still a lot of fun, we still dig doing it, and we're pretty honed in on exactly what we're trying to do now. I don't know how else to describe it, really. Also, we've had support from people who tell us to keep going.

AZ: By "honed in," do you mean you've become more efficient with songwriting, or that you've discovered what clicks?

Michael: A combination of both. We can get together and write a song, and we know when one's good and when one's not. We really know how to push our sound, and we love doing it. We are more adept at getting to new places, and there's still a lot of exploration in what we do. But now, we know our sweet spots and how to hit them.

AZ: Do you see Bardo Pond becoming a legacy indie rock band? That is, still going strong in ten, fifteen more years?

Michael: Knock on wood. Why not? It's been a helluva long time now. I was just talking to someone about it, and every time I just wind up shaking my head. How did so much time go by? We love playing, and I can't imagine what else we'd be doing. We're all here in the same neighborhood, and as long as people want to hear it, we'll be doing it. Probably even if no one wanted to hear it.

AZ: Bardo Pond released a total of 14 EPs in the aughts (seven of them, for the Volume series), but only 3 full-lengths. Would you say you're more drawn to shorter formats these days?

Michael: I think we put out songs when it makes sense. We do a lot of things outside of Bardo Pond [that end up being] more material for Bardo Pond or our collaborations. We record everything we do. And as for full-length albums, I wouldn't like there to be such a gap between the next Bardo record and the last one. We're gonna try to release something within a year.

AZ: Why the long gap between your last album, 2006's Ticket Crystals, and this year's self-titled?

Michael: Time is strange. It just didn't seem like it had been that long, you know-- four years. It's hard to explain. We were in between labels, and personal things, and other vague stuff that was going on that prevented us from killin' another record sooner. I think it was only about two-and-a-half years between Ticket Crystals and On The Ellipse [2003], which is about how long it takes to get our material together and get it out. I'd like to cut it down a lot with this one, and we're getting some ideas together now. In the meantime, there'll probably be another self-released Volume 8. I really want to get that out on a vinyl record. [On the self-titled record], there were some straight-up improvised songs, and some stuff that we really worked hard on in the studio to keep focused. The next record will probably be like that too.

AZ: Why did you decide to go with an eponymous title? Is this record a sort of definitive statement?

Michael: I think we felt it was that time in our career. With all the other records, the titles came pretty easily, but not with this one. We thought so ridiculously hard on it, kinda like the name of the band. ["Bardo Pond"] was one of the first names that [bass player] Clint [Takeda] came up with, and we all felt that it was a great, but we still spent months agonizing over it. Finally, somebody just said, "What are you talking about? That's the name of your band."  It took somebody outside of us. The record was similar. We never had anybody say, "That's the title of the record."  So it ended up being Bardo Pond. We couldn't come up with a title that fit the album or where we were at, and we also appreciated the irony of being this late in our career and naming our album after ourselves. It's been so long since the last one came out that it almost was a debut record in a way [laughs].

AZ: On the subject of titles, the new album doesn't have any of the infamous Bardo Pond drug references sprinkled throughout. You all on the straight and narrow now?

Michael: [laughs] That's funny... No, we are definitely not on the straight and narrow.

AZ: Before I forget, Stuart from Mogwai wanted me to ask this over Twitter. What do you know about "who repiss"?

Michael: [Laughs] We were touring Europe with Mogwai, and in Glasgow, I think, there was graffiti all over the [venue's] green room. I think the graffiti was [the name of] a band, or maybe someone's tag. But John saw it, and was like, "Who repiss?" Barry [Burns] and Stuart [Braithwaite] just started cracking up, and I wandered over wondering what was so funny. John pointed at the wall and said, "Who repiss?!" And I guess the proper pronunciation is "Whore Piss!" So that's a long running joke.

AZ: Speaking of Mogwai, since you all have played together so much, has there been any discussion of a collaboration?

Michael: No, and I don't know why, actually. I'm gonna get on the horn with Stuart because that's a great idea. The only thing we did was a Matador-released split 10" for the tour, but one side was them and one side, us. On stage, we play together a bit. I've played bass for them, and Stuart would play "Tommy Gun Angel" with us. I mean, they're in Scotland and we're here in Philly, but still.

AZ: Invite them over during ATP!

Michael: Oh that's right! That's a great idea. I wanna get on that bill! We haven't been able to whore ourselves out enough to get on that! I'm just gonna go and stay with Mogwai.

AZ: The independent music world has changed quite a bit since Ticket Crystals came out in 2006, and you're seeing genres splinter into micro-genres everywhere. So many artists try to be a part of a particular niche, particularly with more cult and psychedelic acts, yet that certainly doesn't seem to be the case with Bardo Pond. Where do you see yourselves fitting right now, in 2011?.

Michael: We're like Spacemen 3, ya know. Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to. How we fit in is how we've always fit in. We do what we do. If anyone wants us to fit in, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine too. It's outside any concern. We're not doing anything for anyone but ourselves, and whoever accepts it, accepts it.

Bardo Pond performs with Thurston Moore and White Out on June 18 at New York City's Le Poisson Rouge. Their latest, Bardo Pond, is out now on Fire Records