Bardo Pond - Purposeful Availment EP
(Three Lobed)
Six Organs of Admittance - Purposeful Availment EP
(Three Lobed)
Three Lobed
Recordings has started a CDEP series much
like the widely-known Temporary Residence series, Travel in Constants, that has recently started its
second installment. As you'd expect, Three
Lobed (who in the past released a Bardo Pond 10" and the CD of the Bardo
Pond side project, Prairie Dog Flesh) has included
Bardo Pond and several like-minded bands (Tarentel, Idyyl Swords, etc.) in
the series. The first set mailed out were Bardo
Pond and Six Organs of Admittance. Both of these bands are of the highest
quality; Bardo Pond have been releasing exciting
records for years, and Six Organs of Admittance just released their second
album, which is an absolute masterpiece.
Bardo Pond have offered up a new slab of sludge that shows them exploring
two of their sides at their strongest. "Orange
Horse" is a gem lifted from the vaults (it's a leftover from 'Lapsed'),
centered on a riff and peppered with Isobel's
unintelligible moans. The EP hasn't really even begun until you get into
the second track, "Thalay Sugar." At an epic 24
minutes, it shifts and crawls from light ambience tones to wah-ed grooves
with a few moments of saxophone! I can count the
number of bands who use saxophone in a way I like on one finger (Bright),
but this track shows me I'll have to grudgingly
start using two.
The Six Organs of Admittance EP follows the new album, Dark Noontide
perfectly and serves as a nice companion. It's a
single 19 minute meditation that shifts between the various moods and areas
Ben Chasny explored on Dark Noontide. I have a
hard time putting the music into words with Six Organs of Admittance, but
his use of delicately picked and heavily attacked
acoustic guitar, bowed cymbal, crooning chant, electric guitar, tone swells,
and other various noises all combine to create a
mess of swirling bliss.
If you missed out on the subscription, I'm sorry. You should have been
smarter. However, there are a few stores selling
these, and they have shown up on eBay a few times. Do what you can to get a
copy.
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