The Next Big Thing (No. 23) : Pond

By now, all of you have been very familiar with the name ‘Tame Impala,’ the Australian band whose psychedelic music has hypnotized almost every pair of ears that hears it. The Tame Impala fever has spread so wide, that even some of the most well-known musicians in the music industry have also gone crazy about the band. Yes, Tame Impala have dazzled the world with their greatness. But it’s not them that we’re going to feature as our Next Big Thing. It’s another band that also features two of Tame’s current members (proving just how those guys could do just about everything); Pond.

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.”