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Photo – Michael Tartaglia

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POND
release anticipated
tenth studio album
STUNG!
including lead track
“CONSTANT PICNIC”

STREAM STUNG! NOW

Currently Touring Australia

FINAL TICKETS AVAILABLE AT POND.BAND

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Photo Credit: Michael Tartaglia

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“The sun-baked, psychedelic carnival that is Pond clearly shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.” ★ ★ ★ ★ – DIY

“Like the best double albums, all rock life is here.” ★ ★ ★ ★ – MOJO

“A strong contender for their best yet.” ★ ★ ★ ★ – FAR OUT MAGAZINE

“Gig of the year 2024!” – AU REVIEW

“8/10”  – CLASH

Beloved Australian five-piece Pond reveal their anticipated tenth studio album, Stung! via Spinning Top Records today, including poignant lead track “Constant Picnic”. The record comes as the band is midway through a national tour which has been receiving high praise from media and fans alike, with the prolific psych-rockers road testing some of the new tracks throughout their explosive and entrancing live show.  

The album’s moving opener “Constant Picnic” started as a touching demo from band-member James Ireland, which inspired vocalist Nick Allbrook to write chorus lyrics. “Gum built it up with some new beautiful chords in the verse and it sort of grew as things do.” explains Allbrook. “This song is about all the ways we deceive ourselves. In love, climate, history, we find it hard to face up to the truth and suffer terribly for it. The title is from the Australian gastronomic classic One Continuous Picnic by Michael Symons. It outlines how Australia as a nation never had a peasant class and so never developed a national cuisine through engagement with the land and soils. We are tethered to the Union Jack and carry around our rations (sugar tea mutton flour – also a line in “Black Lung”) despite its incompatibility with, and destructive influence on the environment. The phrase ‘Constant picnic’ echoed others like, “the lucky country” and “endless summer” that are all part of the myths we tell ourselves to feel better. “The curtains falling but at least I’m dumber” – even at the final act we prefer to just self-medicate or lie. It’s a bit complicated because we do just want to be happy.”

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As versatile and inquisitive as ever, Stung! features some of Pond’s most glorious rock songs yet as well as some of their least rock moments, all psychedelic drapery or funk vim. The wonderfully sprawling record moves with verve and aplomb as Pond turn unexpected musical corners. There are brilliant bursts of power-pop, such as “Last Elvis”, wonderfully warped by the flourishes of keyboardist Jamie Terry. Written in LA, the track is about the last few people on Earth – an Elvis impersonator, the Idea or Spirit of David Beckham and a tradie having a smoke break.

“This just became a movie in my head which was probably exaggerated by moving around Los Angeles without a car, going through all the desolation and inequality that, especially on cloudy days, looks post-apocalyptic.” says Albrook. “I suppose the hollowness and comedy of celebrity was on my mind, which is why these weird caricatures of celebrities became the main characters of this song.”

There are lumbering rock songs with cowbell (“Black Lung”), crisp guitar tunes like “Boys Don’t Crash” with its sharp riff and sidewinding variations, droning organs and distorted bass (“Edge of the World Pt. 3”), the delightful see-saw of initial single “Neon River”, shifting between gossamer spans of acoustic beauty and slicing, shout-out-loud paroxysms that suggest Led Zeppelin in trim fighting form. Recent release “So Lo” is a sizzling bit of art-house funk, New York cool and Berlin brutalism recombined in a giddy romp of existential Antipodean escapism, while title track “(I’m) Stung” was described by Consequence as “warm and whimsical”. Stung! is a spirited road map of Pond’s collected enthusiasms, and above all, a fun record. Few bands have the skills and experience to sound this confident; they do not shy away from any of it.

Stung! speaks to our collective modern paradox of being disappointed in or even disconsolate over a world that we know more about than any prior generation but also being in awe of it and (sometimes) each other, too. There are so many reasons to cry and so many reasons to marvel. Can’t they all, Pond suggests with Stung!, be reasons to sing? 

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Photo – Michael Tartaglia

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While the last four Pond albums have been showcases of tidiness and brevity, 10 ideas always tucked into 40 minutes or so, Stung! sees the band gleefully, madly and wilfully lean into double-LP largesse, tapping the spirit of Tusk and Sign ‘O’ the Times by funnelling 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, and GUM will release a collaborative full-length album with Ambrose Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Murlocs mid-2024.) They began making Stung! in piecemeal fashion, then, a member or two showing up at the little studio in Watson’s back yard 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 and 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. 

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POND
AUS TOUR
JUNE/JULY 2024

Friday 14 June 2024 – VIVID Sydney at Carriageworks, Sydney, NSW – with Delivery *sold out*
Saturday 15 June 2024 – Altar, Hobart, TAS – with 208L Containers *sold out*
Thursday 27 June 2024 – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide, SA – with Coldwave
Friday 28 June 2024 – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne, VIC – with Parsnip *sold out*
Saturday 29 June 2024 – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, QLD – with Full Flower Moon Band
Saturday 6 July 2024 – Freo Social, Fremantle, WA – with Gia Como *sold out*

Tickets on sale at pond.band

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 Pond’s tenth album Stung! is out now
Available digitally and on 180g 2LP “Bee” Splatter vinyl
Stream the album or order your vinyl copy here

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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POND
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
NOV/DEC 2024
(JUST ANNOUNCED!)

With special guest Fazerdaze

Tuesday 12 November 2024 – Royale, Boston, MA
Wednesday 13 November 2024 – Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY
Thursday 14 November 2024 – Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA
Saturday 16 November 2024 – 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
Sunday 17 November 2024 – Mr. Smalls Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA
Tuesday 19 November 2024 – Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, ON
Wednesday 20 November 2024 – St. Andrew’s Hall, Detroit, MI
Friday 22 November 2024 – Vic Theatre, Chicago, IL
Saturday 23 November 2024 – First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
Thursday 28 November 2024 – Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC
Friday 29 November 2024 – Neptune Theatre, Seattle, WA
Saturday 30 November 2024 – Revolution Hall, Portland, OR
Tuesday 3 December 2024 – The Warfield, San Francisco, CA
Thursday 5 December 2024 – The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA

UK/EU 2024

With special guest Barbagallo

Tuesday 24 September 2024 | Papillon – Southampton, UK
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
Sunday 13 October 2024 | Vega – Copenhagen, DK

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Photo – Michael Tartaglia

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AMNPLIFY – DB