POND have announced a new live album called Sessions, to serve as a companion release to their latest full-length studio LP Tasmania.
Due to be released digitally and on vinyl in November, the album is made up of one-take studio performances recorded while the band were on tour across Europe earlier this year.
Perth psych-rockers POND have dropped the first single from their new live album Sessions, a fresh take on their 2009 track Don’t Look at the Sun (Or You’ll Go Blind).
Inspired by live Peel sessions from the likes of LCD Soundsystem and New Order, Sessions features an assortment of fan favourites, deep cuts and fresh material from POND’s recent records performed live to act as a snapshot of the band thriving in their prime. The tracks are drawn from all across the band’s discography, up to and including the Kevin Parker-produced Tasmania.
Multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson spoke in a press release, explaining that the reason that the band chose to do a live album is that they “ wanted to capture how the band has been playing live lately and commit that to tape while we were in the middle of a long tour.”
“As you play the same song for years, or even as a single tour rolls on, the way you play the songs mutates. Little inflections and fills become part of the song, and the structures and even the overall feeling and intent of the songs change. I always loved listening to my favorite bands’ ‘Peel Sessions’ and wanted something of our own in that vein. We hope you dig it!”
Over the weekend, the band released the first track from the live album with a fresh take of Don’t Look at the Sun (Or You’ll Go Blind), from POND’s 2009 debut LP Psychedelic Mango. It’s got more weight to it than the original, switching from fuzzed-out hazy sounds to funk-injected psych-rock grooves, and clearer vocal delivery, making it more on par with the more lyric-centric nature of their recent releases. Check it out below.
Sessions is due out on the 8th of November via Spinning Top/Interscope records, with pre-orders and pre-saves available here now.
