The artists on LSD Pond make good on the album title by building layer upon swirling layer into aural sculptures. You won’t need drugs to listen to this one–they’re built right into the music.
This double-disc release of the collaboration of three bands–Bardo Pond of Philadelphia; and LSD March and New Rock Syndicate, both of Japan–picks up where Funkadelic left off on Maggot Brain’s title track as well as that album’s outro cut, “Wars of Armageddon.” The careful sonic structuring of the eight instrumental (there’s vocals on one cut) improvisations on LSD Pond is also reminiscent of the great Seventies German eclectica troupe CAN.
All the people involved here are old hands at improvisational music and do not indulge in random, “we’ll let it play out however it may,” jamming. Rather, akin to sonic artist and guitar alchemist Keith Rowe, they squeeze and buffet their axes until they have wrung out of them every conceivable register of tone and cycle of feedback that seem possible in the given time. And they are diligent in ensuring that each guitar exploration finds fertile new ground.
The drumming of Jason Kourkounis–ex of Delta 72, Burning Brides, Hot Snakes and presently doing double duty with The Night Marchers–on disc one is the key force keeping these sonic excursions reined in, disallowing them from drifting into Hippieville. Whenever a number seems susceptible to stagnation, Kourkounis’s scattershot power licks, Ziggaboo Modeliste-esque bass drum, and jazzy snare trills draw the whole team squarely back into the yoke to pull on to the next soundscape.