POND

Pond offer a skerrick of hope in a hostile world with a new record - their 11th - Terrestrials. A cyclone of urgent, scorched earth rock’n’roll, Terrestrials tips the hat to the sounds of then while squarely facing up to the here and now. 

Conceived from a place of reverence for a particularly potent epoch in Oz rock, Terrestrials mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that hits an eternally poignant nerve for anyone familiar with the sound, time and place. From there Terrestrials evolved and the idea of “Goths at the pub” became the record’s stylistic north star - iconic 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the eyeliner-stained post-punk of Sisters Of Mercy, Magazine and the like. 

Reverb-y drum machines, Roland JC50 amps, flanger fx, 12-string acoustics through icy amps and plenty of chorus. Sinuous and propulsive, hard and fast, edgy and expansive, between taut, trim verses and sprawling, soaring choruses, Terrestrials emerged. “Would Goths like it?” “Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes it was thrust into the mix.

For the first time in Pond history, the recording process was subject to a simple set of rules that concentrated sessions and accounts for the albums airtight palette and consistently buzzed energy levels. Namely - No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit”. Relishing the restrictions rather than overdubbing to infinity, the resultant work was reportedly the breeziest Pond record to make, and arguably the bands most focused.

Terrestrials originated in 2025 at the Pond studio in Fremantle, Dream Dust 2. Finally having access to a space of their own that was big enough to set up in and leave it that way, varying combinations of band members dropped by to write and record live to tape at their leisure. With the bones of the record established, the band decamped for ten days to a rented plasterboard shack next to a limestone block pub in an end of the earth-style town called Seabird (“The most West Australian place you could ever imagine”) to iron things out between bouts of daytime TV and band meetings in the pub next door. An additional three tracks were put down during some tour downtime at Nowave Studios in Mullumbimby, NSW, and another two were finished back at Tuna Fish in Fremantle.

Like much of the Pond catalogue, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Extractive capitalism, power dynamics, inequality, indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays - it’s all there. Terrestrials twitches with the desperation of people and planet on the brink, but ultimately bets on the beauty of both to prevail.

Pond is Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Joe Ryan, Jamie Terry, James Ireland.

Terrestrials was produced by Pond, mixed by Jay Watson and James Ireland.