Song of the Day: Pond - Waiting Around For Grace

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on The Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Waiting For Grace” by Pond from the 2014 album Man It Feels Like Space Again on Spinning Top Music.

Pond - Waiting Around For Grace (MP3)

Pond is one of the key figures in the 2010s Perth psychedelic music scene. Their kinetic, explosive take on psychedelia has exploded out of the city behind the reputation of their live performances and their prolifically released studio output. Centered around the core trio of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, and Joseph Ryan, Pond was created in 2008 to be a musical outfit with interchangeable members and instruments, and save for their 2009 debut Psychedelic Mango (which was solely recorded by Allbrook, Watson, and Ryan), the band's studio membership has fluctuated to include most of the members of Tame Impala and Mink Mussell Creek augmenting the core trio. After Tame Impala's Innerspeaker brought worldwide attention to that band and their associated groups, 2012's Beards, Wives, Denim served as Pond's first release to garner acclaim outside of Australia, and in 2013, the band recorded a pair of albums. The first, that summer's Hobo Rocket, continued the band's critical success and the second, Man, It Feels Like Space Again, is prepped for a January 2015 release. "Waiting Around For Grace" doesn't have as much sheer force as many of Hobo Rocket's songs, but it more than makes up for it in the depth of its textures. Steadily moving at a midtempo pace, bright and fuzzy synthesizers hold the track together as the band jump from section to section, pushing the song to new levels of intensity in the choruses and final section. Despite being recorded in conjunction with Hobo Rocket, "Waiting Around For Grace" seems more like a progression than a counterpart to those songs, showing the band growing both as songwriters and as studio craftsman who know how to make a song resonate through ways other than sheer volume.

Pond will bring Man, It Feels Like Space Again to Seattle on October 28th at the Tractor Tavern along with fellow Perth band Doctopus. They'll also be LIVE on KEXP the same day, Tuesday, October 28, at 1PM. Get tickets and more info on that 21+ show here, keep up with the band on Facebook and their website, and below, watch the band play "Eye Pattern Blindness" live on KEXP in 2012.