Pond

POND – PROFILE

POND formed in 2008 after good friends Joseph Ryan (Mink Mussel Creek), Nick Allbrook (Mink Mussel Creek, Allbrook/Avery, Tame Impala, Peter Bibby & His Bottles of Confidence), and Jay Watson (Tame Impala) hit upon the idea of an all inclusive, ego-free collaborative, so the boys immediately recorded their debut album Psychedelic Mango with a little help from good friend Kevin Parker (Tame Impala).

“Pond’s live show is comprised of spectacular moments… The psych-pop jesters spun old and new tunes into pure entertainment gold”. – San Francisco Weekly

One of the West Coast’s most exciting exports, Pond have cut their teeth over the years touring with the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, MGMT and Flaming Lips. They have blown audiences away at some of the world’s premier music festivals including Primavera, Coachella, South by Southwest, Laneway Festival, Splendour In The Grass and more, and have sold out countless venues around the globe from New York’s Bowery Ballroom to Paris’ La Gaite Lyrique and London’s O2 Forum. Pond shares members with fellow Perth outfit Tame Impala, with frontman Nick Allbrook contributing to both acts until 2013 and Jay ‘Gum’ Watson still a member of both.

Since the beginning, POND wrote music and produced records faster than a label could release them. POND followed up Psychedelic Mango within months, releasing Corridors of Blissterday, a frenzied effort recorded live with an eight-piece band in 2009. A year later, their third album Frond, a kaleidoscopic classic, dripping with funk and falsetto, loosely inspired by a diet consisting only of Prince and Fleetwood Mac, delighted audiences Australia-wide. Frond’s release finally realised industry attention and praise, solidifying the band and their music in it’s own right. Beard, Wives and Denim, their 4th album, was recorded on a farm a few hours South-West of Perth. Beard, Wives, Denim is a triumph of the eclecticism and good humor that drives POND.

Upon Beard, Wives, Denim release in March 2012, global attention shined it’s light upon the Perth gang. A North American tour ensued, smashing through 31 shows – including 8 at South by South West – where they were one of the most talked about bands of the festival. From there, they returned home to Australia and sold out a national tour before storming UK and Europe, causing NME to tout them as the “hottest band in the world right now” as well as proclaiming Beard, Wives, Denim as “quite possibly the best album released so far this year.”

“From sleazy rock excess, to introspective, cracked psychedelia and back again” – Fader
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In August 2013, POND gifted to the world their 5th LP in as many years, Hobo Rocket. Hobo Rocket is 40 minutes of perfectly imperfect emotion, challenging veteran listeners and music reviewers with an evolved and vigorous sound. Singer Nick Allbrook describes the release as the “…kind of mindset of finding our own little place in music, and being more of a functioning band, which is what makes it noisier and denser. This one we went as brutally hard as we would at a show. We wanted the songs to sound loose and live.”

Pond then went ahead to release their seventh LP, ‘The Weather’ in May 2017. The Weather is Pond’s seventh long-player, their own baffled, if ever madcap barometric reading of the geo-political situation (amongst others), in mind-bendingly excellent album form.

“Pond’s new album mixes bright synths, campy detours, and grim lyrics… It’s a document of a band knocking loudly on the door of greatness” – Pitchfork

Produced by Kevin Parker, the album’s title track “wakes slowly with drowsy percussion and swelling synths”, said Consequence Of Sound. “As the song picks up, there’s an easygoingness to the psychedelic electronics that breezes through a sense of heaviness throughout.” Latest single, Paint Me Silver, is a gleamingly alluring song, constructed by Jay around a pitch-shifted sample from Todd Rundgren’s ‘Utopia’, which has been described by Riot Magas a “perfect pop song”.

Perfectly measured in its lurching between moods, relevant in its synth-pop/guitar-psych balance, and bang on the money in its polemical anxieties, The Weather is the classic killer Pond album.

Make sure you get down to Pond’s Singapore show for infectiously funky highs, psych-rock grooves and some of the best live pop performances you’ll ever see!

THE ANALOG GIRL – PROFILE
What started out as a lo-fi bedroom project using portable synthesizers and cassette tape recorders has since evolved into some kind of dreamlike technicolour pop universe – one in which Singaporean musician The Analog Girl creates and performs using a myriad of illuminating electronic instruments including the Tenori-On, Monome and Percussa AudioCubes. Named by TIME magazine as one of 5 Music Acts To Watch in 2008, The Analog Girl has had audiences worldwide plugged into her adventurous sound at a spectrum of venues and festivals including CMJ Music Festival in New York, Nick Knightʼs SHOWstudio Revue in London, Worldtronics Festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Cirque Electrique in Paris, Superdeluxe in Tokyo and Mosaic Music Weekend at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay in Singapore.

“A shamaness of moods, Wong commands an enviable handle on dream pop and minimal techno thatʼs resulted in music that hews to a particularly dark vein.” – JUICE

With a brand new album out this year titled Golden Sugar Crystals, her fourth studio release and her first in 5 years, The Analog Girl has never been more psyched to play live. Highlights include its lead single ʻWhat You Are Showing Me Is A Fantasyʼ which was handpicked by Apple Music for Best of the Week Playlist, and second single ‘More Than You Know’ that was showcased on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction with Nick Luscombe.