Last weekend, thousands music fans once again congregated at The Meadow at Gardens By The Bay for St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival – Singapore edition, which become annual year festival. And for their fifth year’s edition they brought sets from Chet Faker, Pond, Mac Demarco, Jon Hopkins, Angus & Julia Stone, Courtney Barnett, Jungle, FKA Twigs, Little Dragon, Banks, Future Islands and many more.

But it seems like it’s not only for the sake of music only this festival was meant to be, but also for commercial entertainment to show Australia’s summer music festival vibe feels like. Combining the old and new Laneway’s alumnus, we can expect new generation of so called music lovers and festival goers gather together experiencing whats new and what have they missed from previous festivals. With three stages which divided based on either different genres or target market, crowd are force to choose between the acts they knew more and new acts they have never heard before. Another unfortunate but understandable thing also happens when the rain started to poured down just not long after the festival get started, the humidity is just unbearable to see especially for all hipster’s outfits who came not only for the music but for the scene.

Started the festival by English post-punk band Eagulls, rocking the main stages of Laneway with fun yet angry sounds made the punk lovers bopping along to their tunes. Continued by Perth psychedelic band Pond, crowd can enjoy the modern age of rock and roll with an Australian twist. With the distortion of the guitar, heavy drums, swaying vocals and groovy Australian attitude. And that marks the start of the festival.

Another fun sets came from the witty solo singer – songwriter Mac DeMarco and his band. The Canadian-native Mac DeMarco attracted the largest afternoon crowd at Laneway, with his jizz jazz laid-back music. Whilst he fixed up some technical issues, his band mate covered Yellow with some karaoke style goofiness. And as usual, Mac ended his performance by crowd surfing over the soaking wet crowd.

Talking about women’s day not long after the festival, we can see that there are long list of female performance for this year’s festival. Starting with Melbourne, singer-songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett, her performance is just as sweet and sly as her music style. Playing songs from her EPs, we can pretty much enjoy what she had brought to festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and Coachella.

We also experienced another awesome rock band from duo Royal Blood that afternoon. With the guitar-like bass and drums rippled among the crowds, we definitely thank the promoter for not being too mainstream.

Angus & Julia Stone, the formidable brother-sister duo, hailing from Sydney, which also another top act who have performed at a large-scale event bring their heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics and honey-like harmonies is just nice to company couples that afternoon. Follow by local Singapore acts .gif and Hanging Up The Moon, with their folk acoustic tune which suits the timing for the crowd to have a break for food or just chilling before the sun goes down.

After the sun goes down, the party started up. As expected with big crowd, London’s tropical mambo jambo percussion rhythms band Jungle, serving up without doubt the funkiest set of the day, just nice to start the weekend night. Continued with some other girl power such FKA Twigs, and Swedish band Little Dragon, and followed by Banks, whose electronic efforts were almost wasted on a crowd that was running for cover. As expected with bigger crowds, they are as impressive as what electronic with lots of sound effect could offer. Name that we couldn’t missed was Chet Faker, man who was once a faceless musician with a powerful voice, and became the best of what electronic soul has to offer. After collaborations with the likes of Flume and his hit remixes of songs like Trembling Hands by Australian band and previous Laneway Festival Headliner’s, his live performance is one of the too bad to be missed that time.

Probably things they need to take notes of next time when they want to do such festival in Singapore, are consideration of what exactly the target audiences wanted to enjoy, and again when it comes to after party. We think if they still wanted to held such festival in one of the cleanest place on earth, maybe they can hire some volunteer to do it or just simply not having too much waste cause commercial booth – you know, it’s supposed to be simple raw music festival for music lovers not farmer’s market with lots of unnecessary pop up booths. So lets see what they can bring next year, will the festival be more commercial or they can introduce us to more of music options like what they will do in SXSW. (Photos : Michael Reily)

Hobo Rocket, their fifth album, was finally released on August 2nd. And to say that Pond is on fire would be an understatement: the guys have produced five albums in the span of five years since their formation. And with them, it’s not the common tale of I’m-aiming-for-commercial-success-so-I-force-myself-to-be-productive like so many artists have fallen trap into nowadays. It seems like their heads are just so full with ideas that they simply can’t contain it all inside anymore, and those ideas found their way out themselves.

The album opens with Whatever Happened To The Million Head Collide, giving us a warm up before we move on deeper into the album, with such futuristic notes that somehow still have a trace of vintage feel amidst the modern vibe. The drums in the background work so well with the tingling synthesizers and vocalist, Nick Allbrook’s yowls and occasional chants. Allbrook’s scream in the middle of the song should’ve felt out of place. But miraculously, it doesn’t. It actually works with the pace of the whole song. As the song breaks into a full-on guitar riffs, you can’t help but lose yourself to the rock ‘n roll feel that lulls your subconscious into a state of trance. And it’s just the beginning.

“Xanman, Xanman. She wouldn’t understand, you were crying for your man!” Allbrook cries in the second track, Xanman. Within the first twenty seconds of the song, we are treated with the buzzing guitar that reminds us a bit with the one from the other track off Hobo Rocket: Giant Tortoise. The free-wheeling cymbals and intense loopy vortex made for hallucinogenic songwriting.

O Dharma, on the other hand, is something of a half-awake state of mind. It’s trippy and swirly, peaceful and serene—the kind of music that drowns you in a wave of positivity. Followed by Alone A Flame A Flower, a druggy, psychedelic-heavy tune, the album is brought into a halt. It’s like Pond is giving us a short break from the energetic, explosive, head-banging mood the first two songs had set up.

Hobo Rocket is full of vocals drenched in reverb, thunderous drumming, and ominous riffs as well as stabbing piano. The majority of these elements are showed in Giant Tortoise, which also happened to be the first single to be released from the album. The song gives you goosebumps, as you can feel its richness through the guitar that sounds like amplifier being fed through a filter.

Come the time for us to listen to the title track, Hobo Rocket, and our interest is instantly piqued by the spoken work poetry (performed by Cowboy John). It’s chaotic and slightly schizophrenic, and in the middle of his rambling you can hear John asking the band: “What kind of drugs you boys on?” The track is a free-flowing jam and frankly, it’s not really essential, but you got to give Pond a credit for making it as listenable as everything else on the album.

The album closes with Midnight Mass, a dreamy, heavy psych-rock that’s filled with skeletal keyboards. It’s taken to climax with Allbrook’s scream one minute into the song, and the thrill is prolonged by the drum-led freak out repete and spacey effects.

All in all, Hobo Rocket is no doubt a psychedelic beast. It’s rough; explosive; but with pedal bursts, percussion, and synth warps that are stitched skillfully. Afterall, Nick Allbrook himself had labeled the album as “…jammy, and sloppy as sh*t.” And like everything Pond has ever done, it reeks of raw emotions and passion, while still managing to be so carefully-assembled. The songs feel inaccessible, unmemorable, and the distortion that’s present throughout the album makes it indecipherable. But it works for Pond. Just like the work of Vincent Van Gogh, you don’t have to really understand it to know that it’s beautiful. Hobo Rocket might not be as ace as its predecessor, Beard, Wives, Denim, and it doesn’t really take Pond to the next level. But it’s a piece of art in its own way, and ensures Pond’s consistency in creating decent music.

Pond was formed in Perth, Australia. Ever since their formation, there have been some changes to their line up. Current members include former Tame Impala member Nick Allbrook on vocals and guitar, Tame Impala’s Jay Watson and Cam Avery on guitar and drums, respectively, Joseph Ryan on guitar, and Jamie Terry on bass.

In 2008, the first three members of Pond, Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, and Joseph Ryan stayed at Allbrook’s parents’ residence and recorded what would be the first LP for their band; Psychedelic Mango. The LP was then released in January 2009 with only 500 copies pressed, and was later re-released digitally in 2010. Psychedelic Mango was full with catchy, feel-good summer jams. It’s filled with ultra-feedbacky guitars, repetitive bass lines, and lots of weird chanting. And as the band’s first LP—despite the lack of buzz it received at the beginning—it had given them a great start line for their career. It wasn’t even a year later that they followed up with a second album, Corridors of Blissterday, which Spinning Top has described as “a frenzied effort recorded live with an eight piece band at some point (nobody seems to remember exactly when) in 2009.”

And while the band has had members of Tame Impala as their line up, Pond is most definitely not a side project. Aside from the fact that Pond was formed before Tame was, there was also the slight difference in their style of music. Pond combines not only a mix of psychedelic rock, garage rock, and funk, but also a taste of Bowie-esque glam rock into their music.

The original idea of Pond is to get anyone they want to make whatever music they wanted in a collaborative way, and boy, don’t they stick true to their concept. It shows in the way their music sounding a lot like firecrackers; bursting with fiery spirit and untamed creativity. You can hear their excitement and passion dripping in each song they write. And according to those who have had the privilege of seeing them live, Pond’s live shows are much like a punch in the face that you’ll really, really enjoy.

Their third album, Frond, was released in May 2010 and featured a heavier pop influence than previously heard from the band. But it wasn’t until their fourth album, Beard, Wives, Denim, was released in March 2012 did the band start to get a boost of real critical acclaim. Beard, Wives, Denim was made in twenty weeks, with ten people involved in the project–neither of them had gotten any sleep throughout the whole process. As the result, in the record you can hear people coughing, or woo-ing and laughing—which to us, makes the record sounds raw and somehow much more alive. The first single off the album, Fantastic Explosion of Time, is explosive, jumpy, and brilliant. NME branded it as sounding like “The Stooges playing an early Kinks raunch-rocker for a ‘Nuggets’ compilation,” and later also called the band as the “Hottest New Band in 2012.”  It was also Beard, Wives, Denim that ushered Pond to the North America market, securing them 31 shows, including 8 at South by South West.

Pond might sound like a bunch of friends who make music because they truly love it and they’re having so much fun doing what they do—which, is actually how it should be done. But passion isn’t the only thing they have; they have shown the decency to write only the amazing songs. This is why we feel like we should be keeping an eye on these guys. Judging by what they have laid out in store for us so far, it seems like Pond have both the blooming talent and the extremely fertile mind grapes. Their next album, Hobo Rocket, is set to be released earlier this August. While speaking to Tone Deaf, guitarist Jay Watson had said of the new album: “We were going to do a really nice, beautiful orchestrated album, but we figured we might as well capture the live band as we’ve been touring… So that’s what ‘Hobo Rocket’ is, the full on, manic acid rock.”