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POND
announces April 2022
East Coast Tour

+ Reveals official video for
TAKE ME AVALON I’M YOUNG

+ TOURING UK AND EUROPE
MAY AND JUNE 2022

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Photo credit: Matsu

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“It is a supercharged, wild ride of clever chaos…” – 10 MAGAZINE

“Among its mix of roistering 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 STARS

“It’s both defiantly Australian and ambitiously international.” – SYDNEY MORNING HERALD | 4 STARS

“Pond take an exhilarating step into experimentation and destruction with 9.” – ROLLING STONE | 4 STARS

“The band that keeps on giving, having pushed their self-proclaimed “polished psych-pop” to its outer reaches, reinvent themselves yet again.” – NME | 4 STARS

“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

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Following the release of their ninth studio album 9, which debuted at #6 on the ARIA album chart, today Pond announces an east coast tour of Australia.  Alongside a Perth Festival performance on Friday 11 February, the Fremantle five piece will take the stage at The Triffid in Brisbane on Thursday 7 April,  The Metro Theatre in Sydney on Friday 8 April, and The Croxton in Melbourne on Saturday 9 April.  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, England and 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 favourite sport, the modern pentathlon. Massive thanks to Lewis and Steph for their patience and kindness as my instructors,” says Allbrook of the clip.

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.

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POND
Tour Dates

AUSTRALIA
FEBRUARY / APRIL 2022

Presented by Spinning Top + Village Sounds*

Tickets on sale now

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

Tickets on sale
10:00am GMT
Wednesday 24 November

Presented by Spinning Top

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

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New album 9 – OUT NOW

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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.

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AMNPLIFY – DB