Under Glass

Recording information: Lemur House Studio, Philadelphia, PA (04/27/1998); Lemus House Studio, Philadelphi (04/27/1998).
Unknown Contributor Roles: Clint Takeda; Joe Culver; John Gibbons; Roy Montgomery; Bardo Pond.
Under Glass is another release from two already great abstract projects -- the Hash Jar Tempo moniker denotes a collaboration between New Zealand's Roy Montgomery and the Bardo Pond, artists whose individual work explores the extremes of spacey, atmospheric rock. Under Glass consists of eight long compositions formed from slow-building swells of sound, sometimes with a dramatic, lumbering feel and sometimes with a more drugged-out and sedate tone. The aspect of the group's work that separate them from similar projects, however, is their use of indistinct, barely present bits of drums and vocals, making Under Glass seem less like an exercise in ambience and more like a spacey rock band as seen through a dense and disorienting fog. ~ Nitsuh Abebe