After temporary, considerably ill-fated run because the Pure Strains, Matt Pond PA is again to its charming outdated self with The Ballad Of The Pure Strains, out there February 7 through Sonder Home. The band’s stressed chief has acknowledged that the one-album identify change induced extra confusion amongst followers than it was price. Pond even wrote a track about it (“The Ballad Of The Pure Strains”) and made it the primary single from the brand new album.
The LP’s newest focus monitor, “Korea,” grew out of a scoring challenge with Pond’s longtime collaborator, Chris Hansen. The movie entails an American soldier stationed abroad in 1959, although Pond would slightly not get into any extra particulars—aside from the truth that its “earnest openness” caught with him.
“It felt as if the digicam was trying to find one thing,” he says. “But, on the similar time, it was accepting and totally open to this world throughout the ocean.”
With a reassuring hominess that belies its title, “Korea” was recorded in Pond’s Hudson Valley basement with Hansen on guitar, Hilary James on cello and Dan Ford and Kyle Kelly-Yahner on drums. Wanting so as to add an genuine voice to the track, Pond linked with celebrated creator and journalist Mary Choi, a local of Seoul, South Korea.
“Our conversations—first over e-mail after which by telephone—targeted on the which means and emotion her phrases ought to convey,” he says. “In the long run, she recorded her secret reflections in a closet in her dwelling.”
The scoring gig impressed Pond to take a “deep dive” into exhausting drives filled with band footage. What you see within the video for “Korea” was shot in 2004 by photographer Jeremy Balderson whereas the band was monitoring A number of Arrows Later and a canopy of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” at New York’s legendary Bearsville Studios.
“Again then, we weren’t used to working with such nice gear or in rooms that sounded so good,” says Pond. “All the pieces concerning the expertise felt ridiculous and thrilling. As you’ll discover, I’ve by no means been—and by no means can be—good at basketball. Typically, I don’t acknowledge myself in my very own tales. I can get misplaced in my head so simply. However after I take a step outdoors, I’m reminded of the superb individuals and locations round me.”
We’re proud to premiere Matt Pond PA’s “Korea” video.
—Hobart Rowland
See Matt Pond PA stay.