Bardo Pond + Tom Carter
4/23/03

5
...according to our Mike on 24 January 2012.

Nearly ten years ago, Bardo Pond got together with their friend Tom Carter of Charalambides fame and spent a single day in April putting together two and a half hours of drawn-out psychedelic meditations. This is totally relaxing, bong-fuelled astral madness from start to finish. It’s reminding me a little bit of that fantastic Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw collaboration that came out a few months back with these laid back stoner grooves and more out-there minimal weirdness with Bardo Pond on fine form while Carter picks out his beguiling, fragile yet muscular psych guitar lines. You can tell by both the quality and quantity of music on offer here that the moment they captured was one in which they were well attuned to one another’s styles instantly and just wanted to capture as much of that magic as they could while it was still there, as this kind of magic is so often a fleeting thing that’s hard to recapture. Lucky for them they don’t have to, then, since the whole trip was caught on tape and is now being made available in its most expansive form yet in the form of this double LP with CD and download and screenprinted gatefold sleeve and bonus never-before-released material from the mighty Three Lobed. If you’re a fan of Bardo Pond or Charalambides (and let’s face it, you are) then I can reassure you that this is far from a throwaway or novelty release but stands up strongly in relation to their non-collaborative bodies of work. Drifting gently between far-out therapeutic psych-drone vibes and slightly more post rocky bits, but never getting confrontational or hard work, this is an absorbing document of an extraordinary day.

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What their label says...

three lobed recordings is exceptionally proud to bring the landmark 2004 drone epic 4/23/03 from bardo pond and tom carter to vinyl for the very first time. while both of these artists have spent decades carving out corners of the american underground, the album collects the output of a single magical day nearly a decade ago when these stalwart voices shared a lengthy day cranking out a unique set of psych excursions. simply stated, 4/23/03 is a special moment in both artists’ vast catalogs. but don’t just take our word for it…

“at first glance, the 2003 collaborative LP between bardo pond and charalambides’ tom carter seems a bit non-descript. its title is the date of the session and songs are named by their durations. the music sounds like another day at the bardo pond office known as the lemur house, the philadelphia space where this and nearly all of the band’s other records have been made.

but once you intently listen to these slow-burning, sky-reaching jams you’ll start to realize that maybe that is exactly the point. carter fits his guitar pieces into the bardo pond puzzle so naturally that this truly is one of the great lemur house séances. you get the sense that everyone involved realized that connection from the very first note and nobody wanted to get in the way of the magic they had all locked into. names and titles would just distract; let people sink into these deep clouds with nothing but their open ears.

almost nine years later, there’s still a lot of depths for listeners to plumb on 4/23/03. and even though this session still sounds completely natural and up to bardo pond’s high standards, there’s something different about what happened during the week of carter’s 2003 visit to philadelphia. whatever ghost it is these guys were able to conjure, it stuck; all the music they made together has a stirring, ineffable vibe that never fades. you can hear it throughout the album’s entirety, including the bonus track to this reissue – the misty, quaking “8:28” – and especially in the CD of live material taken from the tritone just two days later. by then, the bardo - carter mind-meld was so strong that 40 minutes of uninterrupted jamming could just fly by.

the great work both parties have done in the decade since indicates it’s high time for mr. carter to check back in at the lemur house to revisit this collaborative spirit. until then, diving farther into this ever-expanding edition 4/23/03 should last you just fine.”