BARDSPEC: Otherworldly Project Featuring Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson Undrapes “Bone” Video

Hydrogen, the forthcoming debut from BARDSPEC, an experimental side project featuring Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson and Today Is The Day’s Steve Austin, is nearly two weeks away.

BARDSPEC offers up a stunning fusion of stirring, hallucinatory synth-sounds, mercurial guitar effects and hypnotic rhythms that navigate illusory landscapes. Field recordings and other found-sounds also drift and evaporate into the ether. Working intuitively with these elements and with sharpened senses, attuned to inner impulses, this is immersive music, that can exist anywhere, and anytime within the minds of the listener.

BARDSPEC is inspired by the German masters Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schultze, and Conrad Schnitzler in addition to contemporary ambient music like Norwegian one-man-band Biosphere and abstract modern electronic music like When, as well as the electronic/industrial-driven metal like Godflesh.

The idea of micro and macro represents the very essence of BARDSPEC, which is thematically and sonically about minimizing, subtracting and meditating upon the simplest essence of “things” the single points, exemplified through the song titles like “Bone,” “Salt” and so on; the basic elements and foundations that make up the whole. There is an element of “space” in the music and the artwork, as a representation of the inner workings of the mind and the subconscious.

In a recent investigation of the release, Metal Wani hails a, “challenging and introspective musical experience that is worth a listen.” Team Rock elaborates, “this is a wistful paean to the atmospheric achievements of electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Cluster, replete with shimmering walls of old-school synths and a persistent motorik pulse that’s equal parts Kraftwerk and Neu! Unlike a lot of similarly inclined projects, however, the extended pieces on Hydrogen sound neither retro nor tethered to someone else’s blueprint.” Aural Delights concurs, “This release delivers yet another fascinating example of the development of ambient post-rock with nods towards electronica and early krautrock which appears prevalent at the moment. Highly enjoyable.” Adds Metal Injection, “The project aims to entrance its listeners in ethereal atmospheres, rather than bludgeon with odd times and black metal.”

BARDSPEC will perform a rare and special show later this month at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus Bar. The record release show — in association with AISA and By Norse – features BARDSPEC, alongside Josh Graham’s IIVII, and recent additions, Gnaw, and is set to take place on June 29th at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, New York.