Ondo – Mahavishnu

February 2008 • Paradigms Recordings

Ondo is yet another one of those super-underground-ultra-obscure bedroom ambient artists, with the following anomaly: his (of course, it's just one guy) album Mahavishnu is actually pretty decent. The average ritual ambient and drone mix is littered with interesting and somewhat experimental bits thrown in to keep it a unique album.

For this sort of self-produced album, I have to say I'm really impressed with the sound itself. The droning is aggressive and deep, sometimes tonal but still very un-melodic; they sound just about what my ideal version of drone should be. It sounds like several different sound sources were used for the different tracks (some synth, some guitar, perhaps) so no two drones sound the same. The ambience is well-done—dark, creepy, and full of different sounds and textures; sampling, noise, the whole lot. Unfortunately there isn't much else to say about it (I mean, there never really is much to say about dark ambient), except it's good. I like it.

My one major complaint about Mahavishnu is that the album doesn't flow particularly well (actually, it doesn't flow at all), making it seem a bit like a compilation of various tracks. Often the tracks just stop abruptly rather than fading into the next one, making listening to the album a somewhat jarring experience. Also there are some bits that don't really fit in with the rest of the album (like "Second", which is just random guitar noise) whose existence makes little sense.

Still, this album is mostly good and shows a lot of promise. It's not focused enough to take very seriously, but when it's good it's up there with some of my favorite drone and dark ambient stuff. Overall it's probably not recommendable because it feels so rough but I'm hopeful for Ondo's newer releases.

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