Ears Wide Open: Bardo

Kevin Bronson on June 17th, 2021

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Bardo Martinez, lead singer of the beloved L.A. quartet Chicano Batman, plays both sonic and metaphysical explorer on “Everywhere Reminds Me of Space,” the solo debut album he announced this week.

Releasing under the name Bardo (but not to be confused with the rapper/producer or, of course, the ’80s pop duo), the album is out July 23 via his own Yemayá Sol Records. Influenced by beat music and hip-hop, the early singles sound as trippy as the album’s title.

The album gets its title from a lyric in the song “Neon Light”: “I walk the Earth in search of a place / everywhere reminds me of space,” Bardo sings, calling the album a “sonic menagerie that took me years to transform into a coherent body of work.”

He adds: “With this record I wanted to showcase the beats and spoken-word cinematic vision quests along with some tunes I had stashed away in the vault. A little Casio keyboard, a maestro Echoplex and my monophonic synths were tracked all over the record in order to keep it together. Many artists delve into the ether with existential quandaries about life, love and nature; I am no exception. Looking up and around is what keeps me sane; after all, it’s only gravity that keeps us grounded.”

The latter notion is the theme of his latest single, “Patterns Of Being.”

||| Stream: “Patterns of Being”