Stream Pond’s “Man, It Feels Like Space . . .” – First of Two Albums Possibly Being Released By from Tame Impala Sister-band

UPDATE – January 22, 2015 A fourth music video in support of Man, It Feels Like Space Again has been released, the title-track. Watch below, or here:

First previewed at length by The Future Heart almost exactly one year ago, Pond’s Man, It Feels Like Space Again has been a long time coming. As far back as 2011 Jay Watson explained to Faster Louder that the band’s next album was “already written [and] it’s called Man, It Feels Like Space Again.” The album was prepared for release in 2012 along with an EP called Hobo Rocket but that plan was soon scrapped as Pond “decided that because we’ve got so many songs that would take ages to unburden ourselves of, we’d just make an album [of the EP recordings] instead.” Nick clarified to Uncut “the songs [on Hobo Rocket] were written after Man, It Feels Like Space Again and we got scared that if we waited too long we would be inconsolably bored with them by the time it came to doing them. So we figured to put them in an EP Then we decided the same thing about some more Space Again songs and then it turned into an album.”

Although the material for Man, It Feels Like Space Again was written first, they waited to record it until after Hobo Rocket dropped in August 2013 to take advantage of the Pond’s momentum as a touring unit. “We were going to do a really nice, beautiful orchestrated album [Space Again], but we figured we might as well capture the live band as we’ve been touring and then do that one. So that’s what Hobo Rocket is, the full on, manic acid rock one,” Jay told Tone Deaf. With more time to overdub heavy textures on Man, It Feels Like Space Again, recording was finished over two weeks in September 2013 with post-production by Kevin Parker last year. Jay described it as “like Beard in that it’s like a mixtape” in The West Australian. “There’s a funk song; there’s Joe’s country song; me and Joe have these heartfelt power ballads; and then there’s space rock. It’s definitely the most pop thing we’ve done, by far.”

For more details on the album’s development refer back to last year’s preview. Long story short, Man, It Feels Like Space Again is still unreleased…
…but won’t be for long. It’s out January 23rd in Australia, January 26th in the UK and the 27th in the US. No doubt, this will be a big year for Pond. In addition to touring and releasing their sixth album, many of its members will also be headlining festivals the world over in support of Tame Impala’s LP3 (expected to drop within the next few months). There’s also their solo projects – Jay Watson’s GUM, Shiny Joe Ryan and Nicholas Allbrook all released albums within the last six months; a new GUM album is in the works; as is  an LP by Cam Avery and Shiny Joe’s band The Growl – and the possibility of another Pond album. Jay told The West Australian they plan to follow the release of their recent solo albums and Man, It Feels Like Space Again by recording a seventh Pond LP. “We’re all trying super-hard to make something radical and futuristic. We’re done sounding retro. Everyone’s listening to Yeezus (Kanye West’s acclaimed 2013 album) and heaps of forward thinking hip-hop, so we want to make music like that…We’re going to jam for two weeks then chop it up like (Miles Davis classic) Bitches Brew or something, and ignore songs.”

Click here to stream Pond’s entire new album and watch three new music videos below in support of it: “Elvis’ Flaming Star,” “Sitting Up On Our Crane” and “Zond.”