Bong – S/T (Ritual Productions)

Now bearing in mind its somewhere approaching 3.15am yes I started listening to this before the Burgess cut and then went back to it – why the hell I’ve seen fit to giving time checks is beyond me but I guess it – hey – lends to the atmosphere somewhat. And so to Bong.

Now bearing in mind the previously mentioned release was so uplifting and sunny and quite frankly just what we needed at 4.30am – time check again – bugger me I’ll be giving weather and traffic reports next incidentally cold to mild and cloudy with a prospect of light north west breezes – the roads are quiet – or at least will be when the joy riding bastard down the road wraps himself cosily around a mischievously placed lamp-post. Now if you happen to be sitting alone during the witching hour Bong may or may not be the ideal musical backdrop you’d care to have breathing through your hi-phonic speakers, on the aptly named ritual productions, their sound lends itself to something of a dread filled ceremonial calling of horned ones who given the nocturnal setting wouldn’t be dropping by for tea and cakes and a quick catch up on world affairs.

Its grim, foreboding and deathly unflinching and something which dressed only in a pair of shorts and a battered James t-shirt – incidentally the ’Come Home’ one for those who like to make notes of such things – and without the offering of some sacrificial offering I feel inadequately attired for. Let’s just say that opening salvo ‘Wizard’s of Krill’ is purely for playing in the day time – well creepy and soul sapping.

Initially rearing its head in 2009 on a limited 500 vinyl run all of which disappearing on sight the self titled Bong debut gets a deserved go on CD for the first time following the acclaim met by their recent ’Mana Yood Sushai’set – a copy of which we feel we need in our lives right now not least so that we can scare the bejeezus out of the local folks. To describe and best enjoy these three slavering brutes you’d be advised to pause a second and skin up the fattest blow you’ve ever done, spark up and let your head space melt away for the aptly named Bong appear to have – shall we say – been imbibing in mind mushrooming substances in the laying of this leviathan like beast for so addled and tripped out these monolithic primordial mantras probably sound in their wasted and hazy heads like brutish techno fry ups though without the enhancement of additives are slowed to such despair driven stillness that they consume, suffuse and glower menacingly like some aural black hole sucking the light, energy and spirit from their surroundings.

In short they make Earth sound like happy, clappy all singing and dancing smiley souls of the party. ’asleep’ is particularly invested in the kind of low end arid dry drone mirages that translate with deathly desolation , the maddening throngs and slo core reverbs ripple and rupture your listening space with hopelessness. Somewhere else ‘The Starlit Grotto’ – really tell me they are kidding – just needs to be heard to be believed – the ultimate head fuck – a stonking beatnik bastard that seamlessly shape shifts across a number of generic sonic species – a hulking psych fused transcendental journey into the third eye is what you get – monastic chants, subtle middle eastern accents, pulsar riffage and an air of dark foreboding reverence inscribed with the kind of lost archaic tongue and tripping Tibetan vibe that you’d expect to find grimly gouging the grooves of releases by beta lactam ring regulars – Soriah, un festin sagital and seven that spells the latter albeit though in cosmically minded moods. All said the doomy droning dogs danders.

[Rating:4]

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