Review: Koi Pond - So Higher (Sonic Meditations, 2012)
New York City based trio Koi Pond has a short history of throbbing, underground psychedelic jams and the fact, that its individual members are more known than their own little musical enterprise itself - drummer Dave Aron on drums, Pete Vogl wielding both synthesizer and electric guitar, and Arik “Moonhawk” Roper himself (the guy who did most artwork for {among many others} Sleep, especially Dopmesmoker and its awesome 2012 reissue on Souther Lord) on bass guitar, providing a driving, low-end funky pulsations which are like concrete foundations upon which Vogl constructs his brain-frying guitar/synth solos.
Their debut album was a 2008 cassette Volcano, released by the ever-glowing Night People Records. It made a few minor ripples in the deep underground, mostly due to the awesome, now-defunct Sunflower Chakra Milk blog, which at the time (08-09) pretty much defined and shaped my music taste. But the important factor as to why the album, filled with creative, badass take on psychedelic rock, didn’t sell. It was because of its extremely lo-fi production - the synths and the drums were barely recognizable under the wall of tape hiss, and the bass guitar pounding away in the narcotic fog was the only thing that could be heard right away.
But here’s hoping that the same fate will not apply to the newest vinyl offering from Justin Wright’s (aka Expo ‘70) label Sonic Meditations. The production here is much cleared and more hi-fi, which doesn’t mean the bass guitar and Aron’s krauty, thunderous drumming don’t pack a serious punch. Don’t be misleaded by the gentle, droning opening of side A’s behemoth “Odysseia”. Once Roper’s bass kicks in and sets for a groove, you should know you’re in for a fucking trip. Roper and Aron synchronize to create a propelling caveman drone-psych, while Vogl sets free cascades after cascades of synthesizer improvisations, flooding the rolling plain with a rain of soft, crystal sounds. Listening to Koi Pond’s new vinyl is like rolling in a newly restored 1960’s muscle car with all the original and new parts, both for the purely American, stoner feel and the fact that So Higher feels like a piece of art, a musical sculpture worth promoting and preserving. The whole sound of slowly rolling, hypnotic jam of “Odysseia” feels like an even more minimal version of Pharaoh Overlord.
Side B is more concise and conists of shorter, more energetic tracks. The short, cut-up intro slowly evolves into the absolutely acidic, vile and distorted “X Minus One” Koi Pond ever conceived. Vogt exchanges the synthesizer for the electric guitar and for 6 burning minutes he spews out solo after solo in a series of lysergic, multi-level explosions of fuzz. There is a lot of playing around with studio effects on So Higher, and with dubby basslines and delayful, delayed drumming it almost feels like an intensified experimental dub record filtered through the Expo-ish prism of New Age escapism. There are references to science fiction novels and films in the track titles, like “Valis”, “Alpha Centauri Blueshift” or the Can-like title “Ancient Future”. Koi Pond are certainly far out in their inspirations and they are even more far out in their own work - a work of epic proportions, heavy and wobbling with incredible power of bass and intense trippertronics.
Koi Pond are without a doubt one of the most interesting offerings, along with Moon Unit, Pharaoh Overlord, The Psychic Paramount and Eternal Tapestry, in the modern psychedelic rock scene. The three guys follow the shining path of glowing avant rock bands from NYC, reflecting the most talented and forward-thinking explosions of creativity in the Big Apple.
4 Notes/ Hide
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