Vapour Theories is one of several side projects that
Bardo Pond co-founders John and Michael Gibbons have been involved in, and the only one that consists of both brothers as a duo, without other collaborators. Their occasional recordings, boiled down from lengthy jam sessions, display a brotherly sort of energy, with both guitarists in tune with each other on a cosmic level.
Celestial Scuzz is the fourth
Vapour Theories release, including a 2014 split LP with revered avant-folk guitarist
Loren Connors, and it's an aptly named set of hypnotic pieces filled with dual currents of guitar fuzz that intertwine like flames dancing skyward. The album opens with "Unoccupied Blues," essentially 13 minutes of heavenly soloing over a gently looping rhythmic pattern that could safely run for the entire length of the album and no one would be upset. The duo have a magical way of shaping heavy guitar distortion into something that sounds utterly soothing. "High Treason" is acoustic-based, like much of 2006's Joint Chiefs, and while pleasantly trippy, particularly when the looping pedals are reversed, it doesn't resonate as deeply as the electric tracks. Fortunately, these make up the rest of the album. Apart from the opener, the other big highlight is an interpretation of "The Big Ship" from
Brian Eno's landmark LP
Another Green World. The duo stretch the song's harmonium-like melody out to nine transcendent minutes, coating it with skizzing, squealing electronics and burying the faintest trace of acoustic rootsiness underneath the glorious haze. "Soul Encounters" nicely wraps the album up with one final thought, a resolution comprised of a few descending, delayed notes repeating for a few minutes until it feels like the circle is complete. ~ Paul Simpson