Music has no intrinsic goodness or evil.
Nick Allbrook talks about Terrestrialsabout eleven that doesn’t feel like eleven, about the mine that destroyed a sacred site in Australia and why Kevin Parker He is still part of the family.
Eleven albums. Eleven. For a band that started as Psychedelic Mango recording on a Boss 8-track on the living room floor of their shared house in Perth, arriving here with Terrestrials It could feel like a statement of intent. But pond He doesn’t make statements: he makes songs. This new album carries with it influences from Joy Division, The Cure and Magazinewas produced by the band itself and has Kevin Parker of Tame Impala participating in “The Fatal Shore”. It also has “Two Hands”a song about Rio Tinto blowing up the Juukan Gorge, a forty-six thousand year old sacred site to the First Peoples of Western Australia. Nick Allbrook spoke with Indie Rocks! before the album came out to the world.
Indie Rocks!: New album. How excited are you?
pond: Very happy with him. And it’s not something new for me, we’ve been there for eleven. Know? And I think that over the years this is becoming easier. The first time is pure emotion without questioning anything, you are simply living the dream that you had hoped would happen. In the middle stage of your career you become a little more fearful, some ego comes in, you want to do something good or better. But now we just do it for fun and creativity. It’s what we have to do and it’s a joy. You already know what you need to do.
GO!: It is common for every band to say that their most recent album is their best. Is Terrestrials Pond’s best album yet?
Q: Not necessarily. It was the best for me while we were making it, but music and art are very subjective. There is no exact metric for musical quality. It has no intrinsic goodness or badness: it is whatever you want it to be. I’m glad to hear that, because I’m so tired of bands finding a formula that works and just repeating it. I know that they have always moved within an essential genre, but someone told me, and I think I agree, that Terrestrials It is a slightly harder album.
GO!: How did you arrive at that sound?
Q: It’s funny because we always try to pursue something very different than what we did the last time. But at the same time we follow our instinct, our taste and we follow each other. So I think we move things in different directions just following what sounds fun and new and interesting, but something of yourself always remains. Comes out with that essence pondlet’s say. It has that essence, but it also reminds us of the eighties, right? I think we used a lot of industrial, goth sounds and equipment. The type of equipment and processing they would use Joy Division, The Cure, Magazine. That was very fun.
GO!: “Two Hands” has lyrics with a very particular theme. What is it about?
Q: It largely talks about when the Rio Tinto mining company detonated and destroyed a gorge called Juukan, in northwest Australia. It was a most sacred ancestral cultural site to the original custodians of that land. For them it was as if someone had gone to Barcelona and blown up the Sagrada Familia. And the only thing they could do was apologize. To me that felt like a deeply inhumane way to treat other people and another culture. That’s what the song is about.
GO!: This is not the first time you have used music to send a message beyond entertainment.
Q: Thanks, I appreciate it.
GO!: The band has been quite prolific. They started as Psychedelic Mango and got here. What are the main differences between that era and that of Terrestrials?
Q: Well, technically we’re better simply because we’ve been doing it longer. I recently listened to some old songs by pond and I said to myself: I really didn’t know how to sing. And I’m not saying that out of humility or anything like that, I just heard it and thought: wow. At the time of Psychedelic Mango We were fools traveling and trying to do as many things in the shortest time as possible. All my lyrics were pure psychedelic fantasy, stoned teenager phrases that came out just to have something. Do you think there will be people who miss that? Oh, maybe yes. I wouldn’t be surprised if some did. I know there are bands that I really liked when they were dirty and loud and that I don’t like as much anymore in their more refined and overproduced works. but with Terrestrials we still play it live and it sounds pretty raw, and we produced it ourselves. Only it’s not as dirty as the Psychedelic Mango before, we did it on a Boss eight-track recorder the size of this, on the living room floor of our shared house.
GO!: They have only come with Pond to Mexico four times. The last one was in 2018. Will they be back soon?
Q: Yes, it’s been too long. I know. Australia is very far away, but we always have an amazing time in Mexico. We will continue to pressure the managerknocking on the door. Take us to Mexico.
GO!: There’s a pretty obvious special guest on the album. With Kevin Parker in “The Fatal Shore.” What was it like working with him again?
Q: Very good. We have never stopped working together since we met, I think it was around 2008 or maybe earlier. It’s always very fun. We see each other a lot, we go out together all the time, he is a very close friend of all of us. So it was great to have him in the studio bringing his own sounds and energy. And yes, at some point it was also part of Pond. A huge part. We already have more former members than current members.
GO!: Anything you want to say to people in Mexico who can’t stop listening to the new album?
Q: I just can’t thank anyone listening enough. It still blows my mind that there are people in Mexico listening to something I did, that we did. We want to return very much. I promise you: it is not for lack of love for Mexico or its people. We are going to do it.
GO!: Thank you very much, Nick. A huge pleasure.
Q: The pleasure was mine. Thank you.
