Bardo Pond, by their own admission, have never played a show "straight" -- that is, bereft of the calming influence and/or perceptual enhancements provided by controlled substances. I won't pretend that I approve, but it seems to work for them. Of course, they're equally likely to admit that they've never played a show where at least one listener didn't spontaneously evolve into a bright green giraffe and float off through the ceiling, but such are the hazards of pharmaceutical living. Their lifestyle may be iffy, but their music keeps getting better and better.
According to the liner notes, Dilate took more than two years to record, beating the twenty-month-plus gestation period for 1999's Set and Setting. These folks don't work quickly. People who make music like this often don't do anything quickly (partly because they're always taking breaks, during which they devour a bag of Doritos and eat peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon). Fortunately, it works in our favor; they've used the time to experiment a bit, perhaps in an effort to garner fans beyond the nascent (but artistically stagnant) stoner rock genre. While "lb" wanders further into the familiar Black Sabbath-cum-Spaceman 3 vein of sprawling, heavy psychedelia, "Swig" treats us to peculiar Eastern-style musical meandering a la Bernie Leadon's "Journey of the Sorcerer". "Two Planes", which opens the album, takes the mourful moodiness of Godspeed You Black Emperor and runs it through a Bardo Pond filter, producing a sweeping, effects-laden epic that seems designed to win fans from the GYBE/Mogwai camp. I wonder if they recorded "Two Planes" before or after they toured with Godspeed in October of 2000? I'm certainly not in favor of Bardo Pond evolving into a GYBE clone, but "Two Planes" makes it clear that they can handle that sound quite well. "Ganges", which closes the album, makes a strong case for the long-term viability of the band's Eastern-style psychedelia; they have something to please just about every music fan, from metalheads to shoegazers.
Vocalist Isobel Sollenberger -- who always manages to look profoundly baked in press photos -- seems capable of altering her personality to fit the mood of any given song. After the heavy-handed psychedelia of "Sunrise", on which her "stoned coquette" act is turned up to eleven, her dual-tracked vocals on the epic "Inside" are a minor revelation. For several minutes she's front and center in the mix, surprisingly audible during the song's stripped-down, relatively poppy first half. The trademark haze of feedback returns at the song's midpoint, clamping down on Isobel's vocals like the upper half of a clam shell, but she remains pleasingly audible. It's a surprisingly mannered and accomplished performance, given Sollenberger's reputation for making up lyrics on the fly (Dilate's lyrics -- or words masquerading as such -- are printed in the CD booklet). It also makes "lb", in which her delivery segues into "belligerent drunk girl" mode, all the more striking.
Perhaps, in their own turtle-slow fasion, Bardo Pond are attempting to crawl out of the stoner-rock ghetto, and will one day conquer the world with their definitive cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows". Then again, perhaps they think they're writing three minute pop songs now. While we wait (and wait and wait) for the big Bardo break, I'll be satisfied with the gradual evolution of their sound and the feverish volatility of their live performances. You don't have to be a stoner to enjoy Bardo Pond; indeed, the experience may be more richly sensual if you're not.
