Staying Home Can Sometimes Give You More

"Music's the only therapy," says Nick Allbrook of his contempt for contemporary Australia. Political disorder overseas and continual disregard for local indigenous and queer communities have deeply stifled the Pond frontman's pride for the country in which he lives. Feeling guilty occupying stolen land, unable to offer any clear solutions to the oppression of others also living on it, making music is an outlet of sorts. It's always been that, a way to fill his home of Western Australia's conservative desert expanses with something more encouraging. "While writing music doesn't resolve anything so much, it certainly makes it easier for me to process what's going on," he says. "I think it's fundamentally easier for human beings to talk about stuff. This is how I do it."

Pond's latest LP, The Weather, was released back in May to plenty of praise. It's a much more mature release for the group and by far the Perth psych-rockers' broadest in scope and ambition. The album has clear international concerns, while simultaneously rooting itself in issues back home. Allbrook describes The Weather as "West Australian self-reflective", offering a take on the world from an underrepresented outpost lost on much of Australia's metropolitan population. The 29-year-old says he used to dream about living in a Berlin or New York but came to realise the isolation of Perth was much more conducive to creativity.

"WA is this weird collision of light and dark, full of weird and poetic contradictions," he says. "It's such a paradise for so many people, and such a hell hole for others. It feels like the edge of the world. It's one of the farthest outposts of the British Empire, and no one's around to look. You get some truly sublime and original stuff happening here, but also some dark, fucked up shit."

That last sentence fits The Weather to a tee- it's both at times sublime and a little fucked up. Opener 30,000 Megatons is Allbrook's frank assessment of humanity, contemplating whether the threat of nuclear warfare might be befitting of our failings to better accommodate the rights of marginalised people. Colder Than Ice's disco groove and stammered chorus is so poppy, it takes a few listens to realise it's actually about the methamphetamine crisis devastating swathes of West Australian communities. The sonics are lush, and arrangements lavish; reminiscent of rock operas past, falling not too far from what Foxygen attempted earlier this year with Hang. There's little trace of the band's former 70's pastiche or the self-described "strobelight-strapped-to-your-forehead-and-chained-to-a-bed psychedelia".

Pond would today prefer to distance themselves from the Australian psych "scene", the box in which many casual listeners also place the likes of Tame Impala, King Gizzard and The Murlocs. Allbrook feels psychedelic music has become culturally indifferent. He also takes issue with the word "scene". As he wrote in a fantastic Griffith Review essay: "The experience of a city or community varies so much that it can never be defined while it is still occurring. When it's actually happening, a 'scene' is not really a 'scene' - it's completely intangible and only coagulates into a definitive and convenient ball when history puts it in a cage, when someone from the outside looks in and decides there's something shared between a bunch of vaguely artistic fools".

"[Pond is] considered a big part of that Australian psych scene, which is strange to us because we don't really listen to any of that music," Allbrook says. "Psych rock today is a typically white, male and careless type of area. It's now got a really big vibe of apathy and negligence, I think. We don't want to be part of any scene- whatever it sounds like, we want to make something honest and original that lasts through time."

Now seemingly hitting their creative stride as a group, there are more ears on Pond than ever before. The Weather's recent acclaim considered, people are going to start expecting more from the band. Allbrook and co. are determined to remain grounded. "We don't want to place a greater worth on ourselves than we deserve," he says. "As an Australian, any admission of self-worth is seen as showboating. But if we're writing songs that make a point about equality or care and kindness, and it gets through to even one person, I'm gonna be really, really fucking happy."