Pomd announce UK and Europe headline tour
POND
ANNOUNCE UK AND EUROPE TOUR
FOR MAY AND JUNE 2022
REVEAL OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR
’ TOURING AUSTRALIAN EAST COAST APRIL 2022
Photo credit: Matsu
“Thankfully the noise has been manipulated into their most accessible music, with towering recent single Human Touch recalling the widescreen space-rock of their collaborators Tame Impala.” – The Guardian
“The band that keeps on giving, having pushed their self-proclaimed “polished psych-pop” to its outer reaches, reinvent themselves yet again” – NME, 4*
“Latest album 9 deviates from the left-field psych-pop of their most recent ones by hunting down the groove, taking cues from early-70s krautrock and delivering an irresistible set that pulses with echoes of Giorgio Moroder, Detroit techno and Young Americans-era Bowie.” – Classic Rock, 8/10
“Among its mix of roiserting anthems and melodramatic balladry, ‘9’ exudes a supple confidence throughout, engaging in some of the most enthralling Australian psychedelia to emerge from 2021” – DIY, 4*
“energised flourishes of focused derangement: fecund shows of thriving Pond-life for unsettled times.” – Record Collector, 4*
“Following a series of increasingly refined albums, Pond have radically changed things up… reaching for Bowie-esque grandeur on the opening ‘Song For Agnes’, they lock into an INXS-style chromium funk groove on ‘America’s Cup’ and reimagine The Clash as a synth-punk band on the speed-burner ‘Human Touch’. – Uncut, 7/10
“…if anything, 9 is more focused… the highlight is Toast, its bittersweet chord sequences and silvery guitar figures framing one of the groups most affecting moments” – PROG
Following the recent release of their ninth studio album 9, today Pond announce a UK and Europe headline tour due to take place in May and June 2022. Following a performance at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival, the Fremantle five piece will take the stage across the UK in June, taking in Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and a London show at Electric Ballroom. Tickets are on general sale from 10am on Wednesday 24th November via http://pond.band/. To celebrate, get physical with frontman Nick Allbrook on the official video for ‘Take Me Avalon I’m Young’.
Of the sprawling ‘Take Me Avalon I’m Young’, Allbrook states, “Turns out my medieval history degree is still lingering in the back streets of my mind. The final resting place of Arthur, the mythic isles where we could go for peace and prosperity but which turns out to be an expensive grey grind. A sense of wonder becomes more and more slippery as the years go by. I’m actually really proud of this tune.”
The athletic visual accompaniment was captured in the picturesque seaside town of Hastings and was directed by award-winning filmmaker and creative director Bunny Kinney. “This was, no joke, the most fun video I’ve ever been a part of. I spent two days rushing around Hastings with my dear friend Bunny and the lovely George, Joe and James Beatty, running, swimming, shooting, fencing and playing terrible basketball. It was a dream come true. The freezing sunrise yoga was magical in retrospect, even if I was a brat at the time (sorry Bunny). A perfect seaside weekend; I got to play, and Bunny got to create an ode to his favorite sport, the modern pentathlon. Massive thanks to Lewis and Steph for their patience and kindness as my instructors,” says Allbrook of the clip.
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR ‘TAKE ME AVALON I’M YOUNG’
Featuring the vacillating psych-rock jam ‘Human Touch’, blissed out album track ‘Toast’, the elastic hipped robo-funk single ‘America’s Cup’ and the high energy, no-wave lead track ‘Pink Lunettes’, on 9, Pond recaptures an anarchic sense of uncertainty and fly closer than ever before to the creative supernova that has blazed across so much of the band’s music.
“We sort of gave ourselves permission to make something stuffed this time. We’d settled into a pretty tight routine with the last few albums and wanted to shake a boat with this so we started off with filling a few tape reels with some absolutely heinous improvised sonic babble which, after much sifting, became the first few songs of the album. We also wanted to up the tempo. The last few albums have a neat little mantra or repetitive theme. If I was forced to find something like that in 9, I guess it would be ‘biography’ or ‘observation’ – a lot of the lyrics seem to focus on single people’s lives, or the lives of small moments or small things when you zoom real close up and they reveal something deeper. Stuff like my cheap Chinese slippers, or a soiled teddy bear, or Agnes Martin (not to put them in the same category, although maybe Agnes would’ve appreciated it). In the Rorschach test of re-reading lyrics, one thing that sticks out is a fixation on leaving behind a time of golden optimism and uncynical abandon. We can’t look at ourselves the same anymore, and the world we’ve built provides a scary lens for viewing our past,” muses Allbrook on the album.
Produced by Pond and mixed by Jay Watson and James Ireland, on 9, Pond’s explorations are funnelled into electrifying bursts of pure psych – pop joy. No tune even veers past the five minute
mark. Above all though, what you get from 9 is a sense of creative abandon and just plain fun. 9
is available now on all formats as well as multiple colour options in 12” vinyl, CD and cassette via pondband.ffm.to/nine.
About Pond
Originally formed in the turn of the 2010’s, as “a Royal Trux-cum-Cream power trio,” fronted by Allbrook with Jay Watson and Joe Ryan, Pond added Jamie Terry shortly afterwards, with James Ireland later rounding out the irrepressible five-piece. Ever prolific, Pond boasts an impressive nine studio albums in their ever expanding repertoire. Pond possesses an ever-expanding performance resumé, having toured with Arctic Monkeys, MGMT and Flaming Lips. They have stunned at premiere musical festivals around the world including Glastonbury, Coachella, Primavera, Bonnaroo, Reading and Leeds, The Governors Ball, South by Southwest, St Jerome’s Laneway, Splendour in the Grass and more. They 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 – TOUR DATES
*tickets for the UK dates go onsale Wed 24th November at 10am via http://gigst.rs/Pndgs
AUSTRALIA
FEBRUARY / APRIL 2022
Friday 11 February | Perth Festival, Perth WA
Thursday 7 April | The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
Friday 8 April | The Metro Theatre, Sydney NSW
Saturday 9 April | The Croxton, Melbourne VIC
UK + EUROPE
MAY / JUNE 2022
Tuesday 31 May | Sala Moon, Valencia ES
Thursday 2 June | Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona ES – SOLD OUT
Tuesday 7 June | Capitol, Santiago de Compostela ES
Saturday 11 June | Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona ES – SOLD OUT
Tuesday 14 June| SWG3 TV Studio, Glasgow UK*
Wednesday 15 June | Brudenell Social Club, Leeds UK*
Friday 17 June | Electric Ballroom, London UK*
Saturday 18 June | Manchester Academy 2, Manchester, UK*