Kristin Hersh’s new album is a cinematic road trip; a series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming strings and mellotron. It’s a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking; an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time.

Previously, the juxtaposition of light and dark has been essential to the drama of Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE, but this solo set is something of a departure; more inward looking, quieter but outspoken, underpinned by background noise for ambience and awkwardness.

“Passion sounds less angry, more grateful, I think,” Kristin muses, “sweeter, sadder. And somehow, no less alive… over car engines and rain in New England and whistling ducks and wind chimes in New Orleans, it all sounds wistful to me.”

‘Clear Pond Road’ is a life-affirming statement, a further part of the jigsaw, a very personal memoir, from street signs to snapshots; a late blossoming and coming-of-age from a true icon of independence. The record is both intimate yet expansive, written largely within the confines of Hersh’s home, making the proceedings ever more personal.

“Few artists understand the intensity of living one’s art like Hersh” The Guardian

“A fearless rock innovator” New York Times.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Bewitched Reruns
A2 Ms Haha
A3 Dandelion
A4 Constance Street
A5 Thank You, Corner Blight
Side B
B1 St. Valentines Day Massacre
B2 Reflections On The Motive Power Of Fire
B3 Eyeshine
B4 Palmetto
B5 Tunnels

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 22ND ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 24TH).

Never released material from the band's 2001 and 2004 BBC Peel Sessions, a unique insight into the bandís development. Bardo Pond let it all go in their ideal live setting, morphing and expanding their beautiful drone-rock compositions. Artwork designed and created by Michael Gibbons of the band, this also includes a full album download.

“Obviously, Bardo Pond are the greatest band in the world” VICE

Super rare recordings from 2002 and pressed on vinyl for the very first time. The third in the band’s series of limited-edition releases showcasing jam sessions and other miscellany. Like Fugazi on acid, a rage for the Velvets, a mantra with real purity of tone.

Somewhere between the ‘Dilate’ album in 2001 (“a combination of Kyuss and Spacemen 3” NME) and ‘On the Ellipse’ in 2003 ("Nowhere is feedback more melancholic, more emotive, than that fashioned by Bardo Pond” Brainwashed), Bardo Pond transcended into a mantra-like, multi-layered, cross-dimensional, wah wah powered nirvana.

In some circles, they say, spaceships wafted them away and they only returned some-time later, mind-altered and bedraggled, ears ringing. But that is the stuff of supposition.

As we already know, there is no ‘off’ switch on Bardo Pond, they are never knowingly unplugged. Indeed, the modal evolution of their sound continues unabated.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Sifaka
A2 Ecstasy Dub
Side B
B1 Lomand
Side C
C1 Tanked
C2 Trimurti
Side D
D1 Blue Turban 

A quartet in those early days, they assembled a demo cassette to use for booking and merch purposes titled cryptically as "No Hashish, No Change Money, No Saki Saki". This release largely remained a Discogs curio in the intervening years, never seeing a wide formal release in any capacity. Now, thirty years later, "No Hashish..." makes its frst truly formal release in a mastered format and ready to daze their every hungry fans. Close to an hour of hazy, smoke- flled goodness spread over two LPs, this provides the proper soundtrack for a late night zone out accompanied by your chemicals of choice. Pressed on 2LP Transparent Green color vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Hummingbird Mountain
Earth And Sky
Sometimes Words
High Horse
I Forgot / Rupture
Candle
Light
Amen
Transistor
Round And Round
Lag

Upupayāma is the musical persona of Alessio Ferrari, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who lives in a small mountain village above the city of Parma. Upupayāma’s music is rooted strongly in Eastern and Western folk traditions, an approach that Ferrari blends with his own modern sensibilities and style. In addition to playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, Ferrari himself also incorporates a number of other instruments into his sound, including sitar, erhu, flute, and a variety of percussion instruments.

For Ferrari, Upupayāma's 2020 debut was all about the journey. The album served a series of musical vignettes that visited and weaved its way through a succession magical settings. The Golden Pond, conversely, is all about location. Inspired by his frequent visits to a small lake near his mountain home, Ferrari intentionally focused on the details of the place he inhabited, a practice he decided would translate well with his approach to writing music. This is something Ferrari feels is best exemplified with the album's opening companion pieces, "Cuckoos from the House of Golden Tin" and "Entering the Time of Wilderness." The Golden Pond also continues Ferrari's practice of using "invented language" in his lyrics. Ferrari wants his voice to be heard as if it were an additional instrument, a tool that does not convey specific messages. His goal is to allow the listener to assign personal meaning to the music. He says, "I want my incorporating invented language is a way of breaking down the barriers that are sometimes created by language, by having to define something at all costs. Ferrari adds, "I think one of my unconscious dreams is not to have to define any[1]thing, but just to be carried away by our feelings." Earlier this year Ferrari put together a group of musicians to help him deliver his live vision of Upupayāma. They made their debut in Rome in May, and they will play a couple of shows in advance of the album being released. Both dates will be in October, one in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland and the other in Esslingen, Germany. Plans to tour throughout Eu[1]rope in the spring of 2023 are currently in the works via El Borracho Booking. The Golden Pond will be Upupayāma's second album with Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz, the first being the well-received self-titled debut in 2021, which is being repressed to coincide with the release of The Golden Pond in November.

Pronounced 'CLIT DRIP' for those confused or too shy to ask, CLT DRP have been turning heads since 2017. The genre-bending trio's non-apologetic and yet playful approach has seen them garner praise from The Line Of Best Fit, Gigwise, and plenty more. Their music gets you moving, invites you in with power, and makes you question your environment and yourself. In their time, CLT DRP have already supported Nova Twins, Warmduscher, among others, and performed at 2000 trees and ArcTanGent festivals.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Aftermath
B1. Aftermath (Big Moon Cover)

“The album is titled ‘Movements’ because it has changes in feeling and energy throughout. When I was first putting songs together for the album I had a lot of sad songs and I felt like an important part of me was missing from it. So I later added some songs to express that happy and fun side of myself. It makes a lot of sense to me, because emotions are not consistent, to at least have one album that goes through those movements, and I choose this to be that album.

I also went back to my roots a little during the pandemic and decided I really missed gymnastics – my childhood obsession. So I spent a lot of time stretching and exercising, hoping to go back to it once things were safe again. As it happened I took up dancing instead for something new, but that also influenced the title as I was working on the album throughout the pandemic.

I learnt so much making this album because it was the first time I wrote all of the arrangements myself, demoed out in full before entering the studio. It was a challenge I set myself and I also learnt a lot more about recording and mixing through this process – something I want to do more of as I continue writing. Another goal I set myself was to be able to write piano songs with vocals which I’d never done before, so there are quite a few of those on this album.

I recorded the album in Hastings with producer Martin Ruffin who I also worked with on my previous releases. It was mixed by Martin Ruffin and mastered by Aneek Thapar.” – Natalie Evans

TRACK LISTING

1.Driving Home Late
2. Between The Ground And Sky
3. Movie
4. Pencil Drawn
5. Interlude (Back Of My Mind)
6. Colours Fade
7. Sun Song
8. Under The Moon
9. When You Leave
10. To Go On
11. Five Positives
12. Guest Room

In Pond’s universe nothing stays still for long. Although no one who heard 2019’s “Tasmania” could possibly describe its pulsating psych-pop as straight, Pond wanted to try a more spontaneous way of working for their next record. Taking a leaf out of krautrock outliers Can’s book, at the start of 2020, Pond embarked on a series of totally off-the-cuff jam sessions from which songs and ideas could be pulled out.

Given the pace at which ideas whizz past your head, it makes for a dizzying listen. Opener Song For Agnes explodes out the speakers like an intergalactic rock opera, running a synapse-tingling gauntlet through bubbling synth pop, 80s hair metal and blissed out saxophone before you know what’s hit you.

It’s an apposite curtain-raiser for an album that can encompass pounding techno (Human Touch), elastic hipped robofunk (America’s Cup), tripped out motorik (Czech Locomotive) and acres more besides without even topping for breath.

Take lead single Pink Lunettes, which opens up thumping like ESG eight hours into a session at Berghain before climbing aboard a gargantuan synthship and disappearing off over the horizon. Lyrically, too, 9 takes Pond into uncharted territory.

Allbrook’s songs here take a more impressionistic tack than before, resulting in both the hilarious one-liners within Human Touch’s gonzoid thrash (sample lyric: “she was jacking a car but she seemed quite nice so I let her use the toilet in my place”) and the social and environmental concerns of blissed out closer Toast, which addressed both last year’s bush fires and the appalling wealth divide in Allbrook’s childhood home in Western Australia. Above all though, what you get from “9” is a sense of creative abandon and just plain fun. If it was only a fraction as enjoyable to make as it is to listen to then they must have been having a hoot.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Song For Agnes
2. Human Touch
3. America’s Cup
4. Take Me Avalon I’m Young
5. Pink Lunettes
Side B:
1. Czech Locomotive
2. Rambo
3. Gold Cup / Plastic Sole
4. Toast
Side C:
1. Lights Of Leeming
2. My Funny Serpentine
3. The TAB Took My Baby Away
4. Hang A Cross On Me

In Pond’s universe nothing stays still for long. Although no one who heard 2019’s “Tasmania” could possibly describe its pulsating psych-pop as straight, Pond wanted to try a more spontaneous way of working for their next record.

Taking a leaf out of krautrock outliers Can’s book, at the start of 2020, Pond embarked on a series of totally off-the-cuff jam sessions from which songs and ideas could be pulled out.

Given the pace at which ideas whizz past your head, it makes for a dizzying listen. Opener Song For Agnes explodes out the speakers like an intergalactic rock opera, running a synapse-tingling gauntlet through bubbling synth pop, 80s hair metal and blissed out saxophone before you know what’s hit you.

It’s an apposite curtain-raiser for an album that can encompass pounding techno (Human Touch), elastic hipped robofunk (America’s Cup), tripped out motorik (Czech Locomotive) and acres more besides without even topping for breath.

Take lead single Pink Lunettes, which opens up thumping like ESG eight hours into a session at Berghain before climbing aboard a gargantuan synthship and disappearing off over the horizon.

Lyrically, too, 9 takes Pond into uncharted territory. Allbrook’s songs here take a more impressionistic tack than before, resulting in both the hilarious one-liners within Human Touch’s gonzoid thrash (sample lyric: “she was jacking a car but she seemed quite nice so I let her use the toilet in my place”) and the social and environmental concerns of blissed out closer Toast, which addressed both last year’s bush fires and the appalling wealth divide in Allbrook’s childhood home in Western Australia.

Above all though, what you get from “9” is a sense of creative abandon and just plain fun. If it was only a fraction as enjoyable to make as it is to listen to then they must have been having a hoot.

TRACK LISTING

1. Song For Anges
2. Human Touch
3. America’s Cup
4. Take Me Avalon I’m Young
5. Pink Lunettes
6. Czech Locomotive
7. Rambo
8. Gold Cup / Plastic Sole
9. Toast

Critical praise from Pitchfork, Clash, The Wire, Q Magazine and more upon release. New inverted LTD edition artwork. Fire re-issue Bardo Pond’s eponymous eighth studio album from 2010, their debut for Fire from way back when. A lysergic brain wrestler in which the Pennsylvanian drone outfit perfect their modal sound. Teasing the artistry of LaMonte Young and Terry Riley into a guitar shaped cauldron, the album’s compulsive reverbed guitar shapes slowly simmer behind Isobel Sollenberger’s esoteric vocals “Like hearing a tannoy at a station in the voice of Jesus.” The Quietus. A claustrophobic stuttering raga interlocks with their psychedelic leanings best exemplified on ‘Cracker Wrist’ which sounds like something that’s intentionally always just about to happen/and/or spin back in time. Featuring lengthy fully nurtured play offs between the quintet ‘Bardo Pond’ is a heady statement that’s like the most wholesome kind of vegan-friendly mushroom trips. Pitchfork reckons they’re “playing fuzzed out stoner dreams.” Vice’s musical brother Noisey likens them to “Fugazi On Acid.” Allmusic intervenes with: “These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape

TRACK LISTING

1 Just Once
2 Don’t Know About You
3 Sleeping
4 Undone
5 Cracker Wrist
6 The Stars Behind
7 Wayne’s Tune

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON. IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

1000 only. Purple vinyl edition. First time on vinyl since initial press in 1995. ‘Big Laughing Jym’ follows 1994’s ‘Bufo Alvarius’ and between 1996’s ‘Amanita’, inducing tenebral states with their sludgy yet beguiling psychedelic rock. On “"Dispersion" and "Clearhead" whirlpools of bass, feedback-clogged flute, and John and Michael Gibbons' high-dosage, irradiated guitars, are definitive Pond.” (AllMusic). The record also includes ‘Hummingbird Mountain II (A Return Trip’) and ‘Dragonfly’. “Playing fuzzed out stuff of stoner dreams since the mid ‘90s.” Pitchfork // “Today they stand as an elder statesman at the epicentre of an international underground of psychedelic extremists” Sunday Times // “They’re still making jaw-droppingly visceral spine-tingling music” Shindig // Track List 1 - Dispersion 2 - Respite 3 - Clearhead 4 - Champ 5 - Soaked 6 - Hummingbird Mountain II 7 - BLJ

Avey Tare, aka Dave Portner of Animal Collective, announces the new album ‘Cows On Hourglass Pond’, which was recorded between January - March 2018 by Dave Portner at Laughing Gas in Asheville, NC on a Tascam 48 half-inch reelto-reel tape machine and mixed by Adam McDaniel and Dave Portner at Drop Of Sun Studios in Asheville, NC. The album follows the 2017 release of Avey Tare’s ‘Eucalyptus’ and 2018’s audiovisual album ‘Tangerine Reef’, a collaboration between Animal Collective and avant-garde coral macro- videographers Coral Morphologic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Frenetic melodies and cavernous vocal reverb work their way around the slo-mo funk and psychedelic melodies, leading the listener on a stylistically varied and fascinating journey.

TRACK LISTING

What’s The Goodside?
Eyes On Eyes
Nostalgia In Lemonade
Saturdays (Again)
Chilly Blue
K.C. Yours
Our Little Chapter
Taken Boy
Remember Mayan
HORS_

Tasmania is the brand new album from the Australian psychedelic-rock adventurers Pond, a dejected meditation on planetary discord, machismo, shame, blame and responsibility, love, blood and empire, wrapped in luxurious, funky prog-pop.

Once again produced and mixed by Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and Pond, Tasmania encourages us to celebrate the fruits of our planet, frolic in the ocean, kick up the dust, roll in the grass and enjoy the feeling of being in love - while we still can.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Progressive melodies, effervescent throbbing synths and loungey, shimmering sweeps work their way into your mind below the neon lit vocals and alternating progressive soundcapes. It's a beguiling and absorbing listen, littered with high points aplenty and a plethora of head--nodding grooved-out moments. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Daisy
Sixteen Days
Tasmania
The Boys Are Killing Me 
Hand Mouth
Dancer
Goodnight P.C.C.
Burnt Out Star
SelenŽ
Shame
Doctor’s In

The self titled album Bardo Pond is the first new release from Philadelphia's psychedelic rock unit to be released on Fire.

'The first time I saw Bardo Pond, I was, as probably most people are when they first encounter this batch of beatific weirdos, horribly unprepared. To describe the experience as "psychedelic" is an understatement on the order of saying that whacking oneself in the nuts with a ball-peen hammer is "mildly irritating." Needless to say, priorities were rearranged, etc.

Fast-forward 15 yrs, and Bardo Pond have put out many LPs, most of them named after hallucinogens that make you throw up all night and see things - which was kind of them, I always thought. Let ya know what you were in for. All of this recorded output is pretty staggering to me, because, without exception, they seemed able to toss a lasso around some sort of ineffable hoodoo that felt like it was a million yrs old. If Carl Sagan would have 1.) smoked a little more weed and 2.) not croaked, I'm hoping he would have cut a BP track onto that gold LP that they put on the Voyager units. Would've been a way better representation of the best parts of the human spirit than Chuck Berry, I say.

Anyhoo. One night not long ago in the Bardo Compound in Philly, Michael says in a kinda offhanded way, "Hey man, you wanna hear this? ..." And there I was, being bathed in the songs you've got in yr grubby little mitts right now.

I was, once again, unprepared.

This cauldron is a bit of a different brew. It made total sense to me (as it will to you) when he later told me the name of the LP is just "Bardo Pond." Why? It's a distillation. Two decades of playing together have sandblasted away everything unessential and left us with what we have here. It was like no one else before them had ever gotten near the plagal cadence, not Lou Reed or the Stooges or 2,000 yrs of church music. They invented it all over again, independent of any of that, after gawd knows how many yrs of flailing away and burning themselves up.

I fucking love these songs. And while I hate writing almost as much as I hate third-degree burns, I have to say it is a joy to be able to tell you about this record. I feel like Neil Fucking Armstrong.

It took years for them to get here, but this record is the most goddamned beautiful thing they've ever done. Sorry for the superlatives. But really, the only thing left for them to do at this point is explode'. - Fire Records.

John Gibbons: Guitars
Michael Gibbons: Guitars
Isobel Sollenberger: Voice, flute
Clint Takeda: Bass, next-level comedy
Aaron Igler: Electronics
Jason Kourkounis: Drums

with
Jeremiah Misfeldt: Farfisa
Dan Baltzer: Harp

New album from the Australian psychedelic rock band, Pond.

“Pond, an Australian rock band, toppled the stateliness of Britpop anthems into psychedelic turbulence, melting down grandiose riffs or pushing them toward screaming tantrums.” – New York Times

“From sleazy rock excess, to introspective, cracked psychedelia and back again” – Fader

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Off-kilter rhythms, the heaviest distorted basses you're likely to hear and soaring vocal harmonies. Brilliantly danceable synth freak-outs complete with plate reverbed mile-long drum tails. Get it or regret it!

TRACK LISTING

30000 Megatons
Sweep Me Off My Feet
Paint Me Silver
Colder Than Ice
Edge Of The World Pt. 1
A/B
Zen Automaton
All I Want For Xmas (is A Tascam 388)
Edge Of The World Pt. 2
The Weather

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

180 gram LP (part of a trilogy – complete on RSD 2015). Bardo Pond follow up last year’s RSD release ‘Rise Above It All’ with the second of a trilogy of RSD exclusive releases. Continuing their exploration and interpretation of existing tracks, this time they turn their attention to ‘Ride Into The Sun’ by the Velvet Underground and ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ by Brian Eno. The results are astounding and in the case of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ wonderfully surprising, with Isobel’s voice embellishing a rendition of startling Bardo pop. Loosely formed in 1989 by guitar wielding art student siblings, Michael and John Gibbons, Bardo Pond became a reality in 1991 with the addition of vocalist and flautist, Isobel Sollenberger, bassist, Clint Takeda and drummer, Joe Culver (replaced in 1999 by trainee librarian, Ed Farnsworth). Bardo Pond are the flagship band of Philly's "Psychedelphia" space rock movement, which also included the likes of Aspera, Asteroid No. 4, the Azusa Plane, and tangentially the Lilys. They favour lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ride Into The Sun (The Velvet Underground)
2. Here Come The Warm Jets (Brian Eno)

This unlikely group of pond-life obsessives formed in the confines of a Bristolian industrial lift in 2002. The spawn of the Liftmen's newt-ridden nucleus begs inadequate comparison with the likes of Prag Vec, Tortoise, Thee Headcoatees and Young Marble Giants but sounds a little bit like none of the above.

Consisting of core members Rasha Shaheen, Neil Smith, Jamie Whitby-Coles and Jesse D Vernon, a fully formed The Liftmen first knocked on Twisted Nerve’s door in 2005, making their label debut on the pocket sized second-classtome ‘Now Is The Winter Of Our Discount Tents’ compilation, and have remained a firm fixture of the label's roster ever since.

‘Luftwaffe Pond’ sees The Liftmen step out of the shaft and into the light, presenting eleven new shapes in amphibious rock music.

‘Troubled Teens’ is a smart, scuttling intro about religious zealots trying to entice the vulnerable: there are echoes throughout of those fertile times when punk’s brusque energy found its way to more subtle timbres via bands like Gang Of Four, The Bush Tetras and Jozef K, while at points an almost jazzy serenity descends recalling the Chicago school of the nineties... yet just as often this is gleefully ruptured by fuzzedout motorik detours and Deerhoofian thrusts into sonic overdrive. It is those moments that are gloriously expanded upon in their blistering live shows, where they are often joined by fellow Bristolian SJ Esau on sundry electronic devices.

The eagerly anticipated follow up to their Twisted Nerve debut album ‘The Liftmen’.