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Photo – Michael Tartaglia

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POND
announce new album
STUNG!
out Friday 21 June

VIA SPINNING TOP RECORDS

STREAM NEW SINGLE “(I’M) STUNG” NOW

+ Aus Tour Dates announced

SYDNEY | HOBART | ADELAIDE | MELBOURNE | BRISBANE | FREMANTLE

Tickets on sale now from POND.BAND 9am local Thu 28th March

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Prolific and beloved psychedelic rock band Pond has today announced that their new album Stung! will be released Friday 21 June 2024 via Spinning Top Records and is available now for pre-order. The news of Pond’s tenth album is accompanied by new single and video “(I’m) Stung”, along with Australian tour dates throughout June / July 2024.

“I wrote most of this while mowing someone’s lawn. I went home and put my fingers on the piano and pretty much played the base of it first go. This is a very rare and special treat and buoyed me for weeks. It’s funny because I had a mad crush on someone, and they dropped me like a sack of shit and this song just flew down and clocked me right in the forehead and I felt totally better. Then Gin and Gum added all their magic – cool sounds, passing chords.

It’s about being totally pathetically stung by someone and just having to be cool with it being unrequited. Being resilient, accepting that you are a bit of a goose, but life goes on.”

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Filmed by Pond and Chris Adams on Super 8 film, the accompanying video clip for “(I’m) Stung” sees the band adventuring in the sand dunes of Lancelin, Western Australia shining from head to toe in silver. “We went to Lancelin, one of the most stereotypically Western Australian looking places in Western Australia, armed with a super 8 camera, 12 tubes of silver body paint and a rock eisteddfod wardrobe.” Pond say of the video. “Nothing but the blistering heat and dehydration and a battalion of legendary holidaymakers in ATVs stood between us and cinema history. Our friend Chris Adams also put on his little “filmic auteur” cap and carried our shit around while we cavorted among the dunes dressed like a knock off NSYNC. Omg and the bee!! The bee obviously makes it. Nick kind of lost his mind in the endless whiteness and started fearfully battling the beast in the sky. Probably all the paint fumes.”

Last month, Pond released “Neon River” off the forthcoming album to acclaim from the likes of NME, Rolling Stone AU, DIY, The Line of Best Fit and Rough Trade. With Happy Mag noting that the track solidifies “Pond’s status as one of the most versatile and accomplished groups in the genre.”

The last four Pond albums have been showcases of tidiness and brevity, 10 ideas always tucked into 40 minutes or so. But on Stung!, they gleefully, madly, and wilfully lean into double-LP largesse, tapping the spirit of Tusk and Sign ‘O’ the Times by funneling 14 songs into the most unfettered and splendid hour of their recording career. A band for the better part of two decades, Pond has accepted (with no small joy or relief) that they are no longer beholden to shifting expectations of cool. That idea has empowered them, allowing them to play precisely what they want, to not move toward any goal but being themselves.

It takes more effort for Pond to make a record these days—not musically, of course, but logistically. They’re all adults with relationships, children, professions, hobbies, side-projects, or some mix of them all. (To wit, Allbrook and Jay Watson, or GUM, both released solo albums last year.) They began making Stung! in piecemeal fashion, a member or two showing up at the little studio in Watson’s backyard to work on a new idea. They’d tinker joyously and endlessly in Watson’s little workshop, trying a panoply of machines and widgets to get the most interesting sounds. What’s more, they were able to let the songs they had sit over time, so that Pond’s deeply democratic process could not only siphon and improve the best ones but also tease out what they might be missing for this very full double-record.

At last, they realised they ran the risk of being stuck in this phase—creation, adjustment, addition—forever. The whole quintet decamped to Dunsborough, the scenic surfing hub on Australia’s southwestern coast where a friend had recently finished a spacious, state-of-the-art studio. Allbrook would run near the shore each morning. They’d all swim during the day, then record until deep in the night. They left most of their ancillary gear at home, forcing them to drill down on the songs, ideas, and sounds they already had, to make them better without getting carried away in endless possibility. After all, after nearly a year of writing and workshopping, they had plenty of material, the makings of a set more expansive than any previous Pond album.

The title Stung! began as a joke in Pond, a reference to having a crush on someone or something that they began to use so often they simply had to make it the name. They still laugh when they hear it now, a silly inside wisecrack suddenly open to the outside world. But it’s kind of a credo, too: despite the bruises, the callousness, and the suffering, they remain stung with music, with the idea of making songs that feel just so and doing it together, as friends. And they are stung with the world, too, even when it bites back. “Well, I’m stung/the bells been rung,” Allbrook sings during the winning title track. “If love’s a game, then I guess you won.” Ten albums in, though, Pond seems to be having more fun playing now than ever before.

Following a run of dates in North America, Pond will bring their energetic live show home toAustralia in June / July before heading to the UK and Europe. The Australian tour will see the band ignite stages in Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Fremantle and Byron Bay for Splendour in the Grass 2024. See below for the full rundown of dates. Tickets on sale from 9am local Thursday 28 March via pond.band.

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POND
AUS TOUR
JUNE/JULY 2024

Friday, 14 June 2024 – VIVID Sydney at Carriageworks – Sydney, NSW
Saturday, 15 June 2024 – Altar – Hobart, TAS
Thursday, 27 June 2024 – Lion Arts Factory – Adelaide, SA
Friday, 28 June 2024 – Northcote Theatre – Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, 29 June 2024 – Princess Theatre – Brisbane, QLD  
Saturday, 6 July 2024 – Freo Social – Fremantle, WA
Saturday, 20 July 2024 – Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay NSW

Tickets on sale 9am local Thursday 28 March from pond.band

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STUNG!
Track Listing:

1.      Constant Picnic
2.      (I’m) Stung
3.      Neon River
4.      So Lo
5.      Black Lung
6.      Sunrise For The Lonely
7.      Elf Bar Blues
8.      Edge of the World Pt. 3
9.      Stars In Silken Sheets
10.   Boys Don’t Crash
11.   O, UV Ray
12.   Last Elvis
13.   Elephant Gun
14.   Fell From Grace With The Sea

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USA 2024

Wednesday, 1 May | The Basement East – Nashville, TN
Thursday, 2 May | The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
Friday, 3 May | Shaky Knees Festival – Atlanta, GA
Tuesday, 7 May | Mohawk – Austin, TX
Wednesday, 8 May | White Oak Music Hall – Houston, TX
Thursday, 9 May | Trees – Dallas, TX
Saturday, 11 May | Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
Sunday, 12 May | Kilby Court Block Party – Salt Lake City, UT
Wednesday, 15 May | The New Parish – Oakland, CA
Thursday, 16 May | Lodge Room – Los Angeles, CA
Friday, 17 May | The Observatory North Park – San Diego, CA
Saturday, 18 May | The Observatory OC – Santa Ana, CA

UK/EU 2024

Thursday, 26 September | Gorilla – Manchester, UK
Friday, 27 September | The Wardrobe – Leeds, UK
Saturday, 28 September | The Grove – Newcastle, UK
Sunday, 29 September | King Tut’s Wah Wah – Glasgow, UK
Tuesday, 1 October | XOYO Birmingham – Birmingham, UK
Wednesday, 2 October | Thekla – Bristol, UK
Thursday, 3 October | Scala – London, UK
Saturday, 5 October | TBD – Paris, FR
Sunday, 6 October | La Grand Salon, Botanique – Brussels, BE
Monday, 7 October | Paradiso – Amsterdam, NL
Tuesday, 8 October | Bürgerhaus Stollwerck – Cologne, DE
Thursday, 10 October | Hole44 – Berlin, DE
Friday, 11 October | Fabrik – Hamburg, DE

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Photo – Michael Tartaglia

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AMNPLIFY – DB