Listen: Pond - 'So Lo'
Local lords edge closer to their tenth studio album with a new single of funk-infused vibes.
Image credit: Michael Tartaglia
With their new album Stung! and national tour just a few weeks away, today Pond have blessed us with the latest taste of the record, the funky art-rock sounds of So Lo.
Sounding a bit like if late 80s/ early 90s era Prince jumped in a time machine to visit Bowie during his Berlin trilogy, So Lo pairs a fat, funky bassline with disco-style guitar stabs and a headnod-inducing backbeat, while frontman Nick Allbrook’s distinctive vocals sing about keeping expectations… Lo. Meanwhile, the song’s visualiser sees a psychedelic, CGI animated mouth singing along, crafted by Alejandro Crawford who worked with the band on their iconic Paint Me Silver video.
Speaking on the new single, Allbrook explains “I think Gum was just messing around on guitar playing something fun and cheesy and then realized it could be cool in a kind of cold, concrete, No-Wave way. I wrote the line about white dreads while waiting for a bus in Tottenham - maybe there were some hippies around, maybe there weren't, who can really say where hippies are or aren't at any given time...
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The words were “all these tablets got me breaking in two” but when I first double tracked the vocals they were a bit out of time and gum thought I said, “these tummy tablets got me breaking in two” which made us laugh, and thus, by the laws of Pond, became official. Some of the lyrics are sad honestly, about watching your future as you’d imagined it evaporate before your eyes - being haunted by “a child as brittle as paper”. Gum thought I was saying “horny badger, brittle as paper” but that was a bridge too far, even for us. This song sort of skirts between being horrendously bleak and really dumb. The vocoder Gin and Gum put on “so European” absolutely kills me.”
With Stung! out in just a few weeks on June 21 (when the guys will already have started their Australian tour), Pond have also just announced a North American tour during November and December, bringing Pile fave Fazerdaze along for the ride…. After also wrapping up a UK/EU tour - no wonder when we interviewed GUM a few years ago, the topic of air miles popped up!
See below for all Pond’s upcoming tour dates, and get So Lo:
Pond's new album Stung! is out June 21 via Spinning Top Records
POND AUS TOUR JUNE/JULY 2024
Friday 14 June 2024 – VIVID Sydney at Carriageworks, Sydney, NSW – with Delivery
Saturday 15 June 2024 – Altar, Hobart, TAS – with 208L Containers
Thursday 27 June 2024 – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide, SA – with Coldwave
Friday 28 June 2024 – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne, VIC – with Parsnip
Saturday 29 June 2024 – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, QLD – with Full Flower Moon Band
Saturday 6 July 2024 – Freo Social, Fremantle, WA – with Gia Como
POND UK/EU TOUR SEP/OCT 2024
With special guest Barbagallo
Tuesday 24 September 2024 – Papillon, Southampton, UK
Thursday 26 September 2024 – Gorilla, Manchester, UK
Friday 27 September 2024 – The Wardrobe, Leeds, UK
Saturday 28 September 2024 – The Grove, Newcastle, UK
Sunday 29 September 2024 – King Tut’s Wah Wah, Glasgow, UK
Tuesday 1 October 2024 – XOYO Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Wednesday 2 October 2024 – Thekla, Bristol, UK
Thursday 3 October 2024 – Electric Ballroom, London, UK
Saturday 5 October 2024 – La Trabendo, Paris, FR
Sunday 6 October 2024 – La Grand Salon, Botanique, Brussels, BE
Monday 7 October 2024 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL
Tuesday 8 October 2024 – Bürgerhaus Stollwerck, Cologne, DE
Thursday 10 October 2024 – Hole44, Berlin, DE
Friday 11 October 2024 – Fabrik, Hamburg, DE
Sunday 13 October 2024 – Vega, Copenhagen, DK
POND NORTH AMERICAN TOUR NOV/DEC 2024
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
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