Children Of The Bong — Sirius Sounds-Expanded Edition

Appearing in the early 90s Children of the Bong were a British electronica two-piece. They held a lot of promise with their varied at times creative sound- which brought together elements of ambient electronica, electro dub, hip-hop, occasional ethnic spacy touches and general electro genre blending. Sadly, the project released just one album 1995’s Sirius Sounds- then seemingly promptly disappeared. Here we have an expanded three-CD reissue of the album, featuring the original album on the first, and the other two discs taking in a selection of odd ‘n’ ends/ remixers.

The three CDs come presented in a blue eight-panel digipack- inside/ under the disc, we get neat, repeated cartoon-like drawings of different coloured men in front of satellite topped pyramids.  With the set topped off with a colourful twenty-eight-page booklet, featuring loads of great pics of the projects/ 90’s underground dance culture, poster/ flyer artwork, and a lengthy/ detailed write-up about the project and the album/ bonus material on offer here.
 
The project came about in the early 1990s when Rob Henry and Daniel Goganian met at a college in the London Borough of Harrow. In 1994 the pair released three self-released tapes, and in 1995 this led to a deal with respected UK Ambient / Techno / Breakbeat / Goa Trance  Planet Dog.
 
The first disc of this expanded release takes in the pairs one and only album Sirius Sounds. This was made up of eight tracks, which highlighted the pairs good and varied sound pallet, as well as a good understanding/ control of their set-up. The album's tracks were largely fairly lengthy affairs- with runtimes between seven and nearing twelve minutes- but for the most part, they remain developing and engaging.
 
The album kicks off with “Polyphase” which brought together tight stabbing bass lines, cascading 'n' expanding spaced-out techno keys, and piping sort of hip-hop touches. Moving on we have bright rising ambient-meets-elector slightly acid-tinged pulsing of “Interface Reality” which has tribal dips, chanted elements, and occasional dialogue sample. There’s the hollow dub reverb ‘n’ spin meets spaced-out ambient electronica of “Underwater Dub”. The ripping bass wow meets playful electro vibes of “Squigglasonica” which has a sort of digeridoo fed through a vocoder element, as well as moments electro like scratching. With the album playing out with drifting ambient keys-meets-skittering beats of “Visitor”- which has an active Boards Of Canada vibe to start with, before moving into more grooving synth guitar dwells in its latter half. 
 
The two other discs in the set take in seventeen tracks in total. And here we find a good/ largely listable collection of non-album tracks, album track remixes- which are fairly varied/ different, and a selection of live versions of album tracks.
 
In conclusion, Sirius Sounds was certainly one of the more memorable & varied electronica albums of the 1990s, which still sounds largely undated. So, it does deserve this reissue, and its presentation and bonus material is most on point/ worthy too.