Pond

Just as the sun revolves around the Earth, so does the nation’s psychedelic pop scene revolve around Pond. Formed in 2008 after good friends Joseph Ryan (Mink Mussel Creek), Nick Allbrook (Tame Impala, Mink Mussel Creek) and Jay Watson (Tame Impala) hit upon the idea of an all inclusive, ego-free collaborative, the boys immediately recorded their debut album Psychedelic Mango with a little help from good friend Kevin Parker (the mastermind behind Tame Impala).

Not content to sit on their laurels – Pond followed up less than a year later with Corridors of Blissterday, a frenzied effort recorded live with an eight piece band at some point (nobody seems to remember exactly when) in 2009. Next up was Frond, their third album released in 2010 on the back of a serious Prince and Fleetwood Mac binge. This was the point at which things really began to kick off for the lads. Frond was a kaleidoscopic classic, dripping with funk and falsetto which hinted at the fact that Pond was maybe a little more than just a footloose collective of ridiculously talented young men.

Enter: Beard, Wives, Denim. Cue: Widespread mind explosions.

Recorded on a farm a few hours South-West of Perth, Pond's fourth album is like one of those old fashioned documents unique in the fact that it couldn't possibly have been made by anyone else, at any other time. Like Regurgitator's Unit or The Avalanches Since I Left You, it's a record born of the eccentricities and small geniuses of the individual members, yet delivered as a deeply satisfying and hugely inclusive whole. Kicking off with the driving pop of “Fantastic Explosion of Time”, turning left at fuzz junkie funk on “Moth Wings” and landing in a back porch rocking chair with “Moreno's Blend”, Beard, Wives, Denim is a triumph of the eclecticism and good humour that drives everything Pond do.

Unsurprisingly, upon the album's release in March 2012, ears all around the world pricked up and started to take notice. The band hit North America in March, playing 31 shows including 8 at South by South West - where they were one of the most talked about bands of the festival, lauded by the likes of Stereogum and the New York Times. From there, they returned home to Australia and into a sold out national tour before unleashing their mighty live show upon the UK and Europe, forcing the NME to tout them as the “hottest band in the world right now” as well as proclaiming Beard, Wives, Denim as “quite possibly the best album released to far this year”.

And Australian audiences have followed suit with two nation wide sold out tours in 2012.

Not too shabby for a band dreamed up one afternoon under a mulberry tree and, with their next two albums already written (keep an eye out for Hobo Rocket and Man, It Feels Like Space Again) fermenting in Pond's extremely fertile mind grapes, it won't be long until we see the next chapter in this remarkable triumph of just playing it cool.

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