Australian indie psych band Pond just dropped their 10th album, Stung!, which they say was inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk and Prince’s Sign ‘O’ the Times, taking a more of a loose, free-wheeling approach than on previous records. You can tell they were having fun on this one — listen to the whole thing below.
For more on the album, the band’s Nick Allbrook and Jay Watson each told us about things, mostly music, that influenced Stung!, and their picks back up that anything goes approach they took this time. They include Aussie rock greats Midnight Oil, Adrianne Lenker, The Darkness, Scott Walker and more. Nick also included a couple non-musical influences. Check out their lists and commentary below.
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Pond’s Nick Albrook and Jay Watson – Songs That Influenced Stung!
Five from Jay Watson:
Orange Juice – “Rip it Up”
This is a big fave of mine and Nick’s. I feel like musically it does something that we’re often going for, which is the satisfying sonics of electronic music but with the visceral and ‘real’ feeling you get from guitars and acoustic drums and percussion. It’s really hard to make ‘happy’ music good as well, but that’s something that I think Pond is quite good at and Orange Juice are really good at, too. I love the out of tune guitar solo at 3 minutes or so that goes into the sax break.
Comets On Fire – “The Swallow’s Eye”
One of the best bands of all time! They were a huge formative band for Mink Mussel Creek, Pond, Tame Impala. It’s super musical but also chaotic, constant drum fills and electronic squiggles. The approach playing this monster-riff music in a jazz way, it’s always falling apart and then getting heavy at the right time. I love with this record that you can hear how live it is, it reminds me of Kick Out The Jams by MC5 like that.
Midnight Oil – “No Reaction”
Early Midnight Oil is this great combination of punk and prog rock. It’s really interesting harmonically but delivered with heaps of energy and urgency, and great lyrics. It’s also very hooky and catchy, which they carried on into their later more popular songs. Obviously, a very well known group in Australia, but super underrated worldwide in my opinion.
The Reels – “Return”
Sublime songwriting by the 80’s Australian band The Reels. It’s one of the sorts of songs I aspire to write where the chord changes and melodies are odd and unexpected, but it feels super natural and catchy.
The Darkness – “Black Shuck”
We’ve been revisiting the first two Darkness records a bit – the songwriting is so good! I could’ve chosen a whole heap of songs off this first record – I hate this idea that music has to be serious to be good. It can be comical and sometimes that sort of laugh you get when something epic happens in a song can be what tips it over the edge into brilliant for you.
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Five from Nick Allbrook:
Adrianne Lenker – Songs and Instrumentals
The intimacy of these songs and the breadth of her lyrics really stuffed me upon hearing this record. I was really blown away by the huge and profound arc of the album and its themes – about the physical body and world and its transience (as far as I could see, anyway) – and how she so artfully expressed that over the LP, where she, her words and thoughts and eventually guitar, slowly disappear and we’re left with chimes, rustling and silence. It’s so much more of a huge concept for a concept album than a Pinball Wizard. Her wacky and beautiful guitar tunings helped me write “Elephant Gun” on our album.
The Slingers – “No Harm Done”
This band from Melbourne is one of my favourite bands from anywhere right now. Their unashamed bleeding heart Sentimentalism (the name of their album) really touched me in a special spot that is usually reserved for the Fremantle Dockers winning by 100 points over Melbourne. I don’t know what tidy word you’d assign to that kind of feeling but I think a lot of the world discovered it as “Springsteenism” and rediscovered it as “Future Islandsism” maybe… all very different, but with a similar patina of down-and-out-but-hopeful-ness. Of course the rhodes piano on this particular song jumps and is sloppy and endearing and kind of spoke directly to my very sloppy piano playing fingers.
Nancy Lemann – Lives of the Saints (book)
Probably for similar reasons to the Slingers, this touched me like few others have. It is fabulously sentimental in a true way that reminds me that there is no shame in sentiment itself, and that there’s infinite bottomless beauty and pain in the worlds that bloom between families and lovers. The way Nancy Lemann writes, saying things like, “and then my heart broke into a trillion pieces all over the floor” is so funny and sad and perfect. It reminded me of my family, and very much influenced the lyrics on a lot of this album.
Running in the Hollywood Hills
I stayed in Hollywood for a good many months and wrote a bunch of the songs and lyrics that ended up on Stung! That time was at once very lonely and very calm and productive. I’d run up into the Hollywood Hills and look out and imagine all the people in that wonderful, terrible city. Heaps of the lyrics were written about that place and its gloom and foreboding and the hope that remains in its soul. “Last Elvis” for example, couldn’t be written anywhere else, although it references Madison Square. I guess being in nature and moving and observing shitloads of people trying to live with shitloads of people was a pretty big influence for me.
Scott Walker – “It’s Raining Today”
This has been a big one for us all, I think. His insane voice and lyrics, but also the way the strings introduce the whole thing like a rising troubled creek, shimmering and a bit out of tune like an orchestra before they start. Early on GUM (Jay Watson) suggested this album could be really orchestral and I think this was one of our touchstones for that even though we kinda moved all over the place after it.
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Pond will be on tour with Fazerdaze this fall and play NYC at Brooklyn Steel on November 13. All dates are below:
POND – 2024 TOUR DATES
6.14.24 – VIVID Sydney at Carriageworks – Sydney, NSW with/ Delivery
6.15.24 – Altar – Hobart, TAS with/ 208L Containers
6.27.24 – Lion Arts Factory – Adelaide, SA with/ Coldwave
6.28.24 – Northcote Theatre – Melbourne, VIC with/ Parsnip
6.29.24 – The Princess Theatre – Brisbane, QLD with/ Full Flower Moon Band
7.6.24 – Freo.Social – Fremantle, WA with/ Gia Como
9.24.24 Papillon – Southampton, UK
9.26.24 – Gorilla – Manchester, UK
9.27.24 – The Wardrobe – Leeds, UK
9.28.24 – The Grove – Newcastle, UK
9.29.24 – King Tut’s Wah Wah – Glasgow, UK
10.1.24 – XOYO Birmingham – Birmingham, UK
10.2.24 – Thekla – Bristol, UK
10.3.24 – Electric Ballroom – London, UK
10.5.24 – La Trabendo – Paris, FR
10.6.24 – La Grand Salon, Botanique – Brussels, BE
10.7.24 – Paradiso – Amsterdam, NL
10.8.24 – Bürgerhaus Stollwerck – Cologne, DE
10.10.24 – Hole44 – Berlin, DE
10.11.24 – Fabrik – Hamburg, DE
10.13.24 – Vega – Copenhagen, DK
11.12.24 – Royale – Boston, MA
11.13.24 – Brooklyn Steel – Brooklyn, NY
11.14.24 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA
11.16.24 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
11.17.24 – Mr. Smalls Theatre – Pittsburgh, PA
11.19.24 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON
11.20.24 – St. Andrew’s Hall – Detroit, MI
11.22.24 – Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL
11.23.24 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
11.28.24 – Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC
11.29.24 – Neptune Theatre – Seattle, WA
11.30.24 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR
12.3.24 – The Warfield – San Francisco, CA
12.5.24 – The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA