Double-LP compilation Melt Away has been released in tandem with Matador’s 25th anniversary reissue of Bardo Pond’s Set And Setting. It comprises one LP of material that previously appeared on various comps and a split 10-inch with Mogwai, and another of late 1990s ephemera.
Some might complain that Melt Away comes with no liner notes and only the barest information about the sourcing of this material, but let’s face it, no one puts on Bardo Pond in order to read. The Philadelphia band’s slow-motion maelstrom of sound is designed to put a stop to such activity. Just turn the music up and lay your head down or, at least, confine it to up-and-down motion; the Sabbath-worthy, slow-motion stumble of “Shadow Puppet” practically demands that you explore the middle zone between head-nodding and head-banging. Previously available as a digital single, its appearance on a physical format feels like the restoration of a cosmic imbalance.
Certain of these songs have been available before, but not in these versions. There’s a shorter, more guitar-forward take of “Anadamide” (from 1997’s Lapsed), but the elongated Melt Away edition gives the listener more time to get swallowed in looping, decaying sonic quicksand. “Tapir Dub” achieves peak wozziness by stripping a thick layer of guitars off of Amanita’s “Tapir Song” (from 1996) to focus on its unhurried rhythm and Isobel Sollenberger’s murmuring vocal.
Nowadays, archival material is all that Bardo Pond offers. The heavy-psychedelic combo played its last gig before the lockdown, and rumors from within give little hope that anything new will be recorded. But between the Three Lobed, Fire and Matador labels, the antiquities keep coming. [Matador]
—Bill Meyer
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