Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Yann Tiersen - ALL about 14 hours ago
  • DiScover: IYEARA about 21 hours ago
  • Two’s Company: Asta Bria & John Metcalfe @ The Playground Theatre about 21 hours ago
  • Methyl Ethel - Triage 1 day ago
  • “Music as a personal outlet really isn’t all that interesting”: DiS Meets Lewsberg 3 days ago
  • Panda Bear - Buoys 3 days ago
  • Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited 4 days ago
  • TBC: Sign Of The (Stage) Times 4 days ago
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

Bong

We Are, We Were and We Will Have Been

Label: Ritual Productions Release Date: 25/05/2015

99730
Corpsey by Joseph Rowan May 20th, 2015

There are some records where you can very easily guess what they’ll sound like without hearing a single note. Take _We Are, We Were and We Will Have Been. Clue number one: it’s by a band called Bong. Clue number two: it only has two tracks, both of which are close to 20 minutes long. I think it’s fair to assume it will not be an album built around hooks.

And indeed it isn’t. What we have here are two lengthy, droney, gently shifting, mostly-instrumental tracks that play around with themes of noise and repetition. It’s the kind of music that’s likely to sound especially good if you’ve taken some hits from an actual bong, but I can’t attest to that in this case. But if your tastes run to the droney and avant-garde you should enjoy this take on it regardless.

I find that, as a genre so entranced with minimalism and texture, it’s difficult to articulate what makes a great drone album - to a non-fan it must just sound like so much endless noise. I guess that, like pornography, you just know it when you encounter it. Whatever mysterious criteria one uses to rate drone albums Bong easily exceed in all of them.

The two compositions actually take somewhat different paths through the drone landscape. 'Time Regained' begins with an undulating wave of dark, dense guitar noise and continues in much the same vein for seventeen-and-a-bit minutes, with slight variations in menacing background feedback for added atmosphere. It’s a track that could work on Oneida’s underrated avant-garde masterpiece Preteen Weaponry but is also reminiscent of Sunn O))) at their not-quite-heaviest.

In terms of reference points, side two’s 'Find Your Own Gods' is closer to a mellower Om song, or a slow Swans jam. It’s built around a motif of a spacy, wah-wah guitar line, with shimmering HEALTH-style synths and a laid-back, slidey bassline that draws the whole thing together.

However, the two halves of the album do share some important similarities. Both pull the same trick of introducing a sparse drumbeat just when you think it’s going to be all noise, a trick that really helps give the tracks some cohesion and purpose. Both, unfortunately, feature a small amount of embarrassing vocal work. 'Time Regained' has some throaty warbling that’s more silly than the portentous effect I feel it’s going for, but at least is appropriately chant-like, and mercifully brief. 'Find Your Own Gods' starts off with a spoken-word section - always risky at the best of times - about how you should, y’know, find your own gods, but in fields and rivers instead of in temples and that. Again, it’s more likely to provoke laughs than reverence and again it’s thankfully short.

The most important thing the two compositions share, though, is that they are both absolutely hypnotic in the way that they develop small variations and evolutions over their running time, to the extent that you don’t even notice the length of either of them. The approach on both halves is to let a few simple musical elements run their course and seeing how they interact with each other over an extended period of time. It’s much the same approach as Brian Eno’s ambient works and these entrancing pieces absolutely deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence. With drone, I know what I like, and I definitely like this.

![99730](http://dis.resized.images.s3.amazonaws.com/540x310/99730.jpeg)
  • 8
    Joseph Rowan's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Yann Tiersen

    ALL


  • DiScover: IYEARA


  • Two’s Company: Asta Bria & John Metcalfe @ The Playground Theatre


  • Methyl Ethel

    Triage


  • “Music as a personal outlet really isn’t all that interesting”: DiS Meets Lewsberg


  • Panda Bear

    Buoys



Left-arrow

Summer Camp

Bad Love

Mobback
99729
99737

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Multi-Love

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    review


    Yann Tiersen - ALL

  • 106053
  • Interview


    DiScover: IYEARA

  • 106046

    Live Review


    Two’s Company: Asta Bria & John Metcalfe @ ...

  • 106052
  • review


    Methyl Ethel - Triage

  • 106051

    Interview


    “Music as a personal outlet really isn’t all th...

  • 106049
  • review


    Panda Bear - Buoys

  • 106048

    review


    Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete ...

  • 106047
  • Column


    TBC: Sign Of The (Stage) Times

  • 106045
MORE


    Interview


    DiS meets the Manic Street Preachers

  • 96654
  • In Depth


    Lou Reed: An Eu-lulu-ogy

  • 93330

    Interview


    DiS meets Colin Greenwood from Radiohead

  • 94242
  • feature


    United by emo's Golden Age: a reminder of Rival...

  • 36447

    feature


    Klaxons interview podcast & competition

  • 19907
  • review


    M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us

  • 7339

    review


    Jessie J - Who You Are

  • 67447
  • DiSband


    DiSband #7: Viva Brother

  • 77972
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2019 DROWNED IN SOUND