Bardo Hotel Soundtrack

AMG Review of Bardo Hotel Soundtrack

Stewart Mason
All Music Guide

The purported soundtrack to an experimental film-in-progress by Bay Area filmmaker George Kakanakis, Bardo Hotel Soundtrack is a set of live in the studio improvs heavily influenced by the cut-up method popularized by William Burroughs and Byron Gysin. The 20 tracks range in length from under a minute to over 11, but there's a consistency of mood and sound throughout: woodwinds, strings, and synthesizers play long droning chords and simple melodic fragments, as chopped-and-mutated found-sound recitations unspool underneath. The placid surface is broken only once, by the unexpectedly rhythmic pop/rock blast of "Baron Brown" almost exactly halfway through the hour-long program. Otherwise, Bardo Hotel Soundtrack is a hazy ambient drift with just enough sinister undertones to keep it from drifting off into the /p>

ew age ether; longtime fans expecting something closer to Tuxedomoon's original art punk intentions might be disappointed, but when approached on the proper wavelength, this is a deceptively engrossing listen.