Pages tagged “matt pond pa”

The New York indie rockers and capitalization innovators of matt pond PA have a new album, their sixth already, coming out next Tuesday. You can sample a few of the tracks from the album, titled Last Light, on the band’s MySpace page.

The band is also doing some heavy duty touring. Go out and see them play if you live in one of the following 28 cities:

Septmeber
27 - Boston, Mass. @ Paradise Rock Club
28 - New York, N.Y. @ Bowery Ballroom
29 - Hoboken, N.J. @ Maxwell's

October
1 - Washington D.C. @ 9:30 Club
2 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Diesel
4 - Columbus, Ohio @ The Basement
5 - Detroit, Mich. @ Magic Stick
6 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Grog Shop
7 - Chicago, Ill. @ Double Door
8 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ Varsity Theater
11 - Vancouver, B.C. @ The Plaza Club
12 - Portland, Ore. @ Doug Fir
14 - Seattle, Wash. @ Chop Suey
16 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall
17 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Troubadour
19 - San Diego, Calif. @ The Casbah
20 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Modified Arts
22 - Dallas, Texas @ Cambridge Room
23 - Austin, Texas @ Antone's
24 - Houston, Texas @ Meridian
26 - Atlanta, Ga. @ The Loft
27 - Chapel Hill, N.C. @ Local 506
28 - Birmingham, Ala. @ Vulcan Park
29 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Exit In
31 - State College, Pa. @ Lulu's

November
2 - Asbury Park, N.J. @ Stone Pony
4 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Johnny Brenda's
5 - Brooklyn, N.Y. @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Related links:
mattpondPA.com
matt pond PA on MySpace
Video for “So Much Trouble”

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A little over two years ago, a CD sampler fell into my lap containing one standout track I couldn’t stop listening to. My commute to work went something like this: start car, shuffle through five CD cases before finding desired sampler, insert disc, skip to song 7, begin head bobbing, commence foot stomping (not the one on the accelerator, of course), drive off, repeat daily. The exploding opening riff and heart-tugging melody combined with the oddly but perfectly spaced lyrical intonation and jolts of echoing cello made Matt Pond PA’s “Fairlee” the song I couldn’t live without. I eventually ditched the sampler for 2002’s The Nature of Maps before seeking out and becoming familiar with the band’s previous work. This past year brought a much-anticipated follow-up: the stirring, autumnal Emblems, which I’d been ceaselessly listening to the week before the band’s show in East Atlanta.

Matt Pond writes and sings about love and nature (each show even begins with the sound of chirping crickets). Sounds simple enough, but he wonders about their sometimes unassuming asperity so innocently and forgivingly, and his band matches this wonder with such melodic and sympathetic consistency, that our everyday commonness becomes mysterious and hopefully strange.

Opening the show with “Last Song” from Emblems, Pond’s vocal clarity—paired with Eve Miller’s answering cello—illuminates the entire set. Miller’s cello is a focal point of the night, not only because she was center stage, but also because of her classical muse, which brought a new dynamic to a pop/rock concert. Before becoming loud and guitar-driven, one song starts out with a two-minute adagio. It’s refreshing and unexpected, humbling and sad, and it works beautifully.

Closing the show after about an hour, the band is beckoned back on stage, immediately erupting into “Fairlee.” For me, it’s the perfect way for them to go out—just the way they showed up, abrupt but welcome, knocking (and rocking) loudly.

Matt Pond PA is a band, not a guy, thank you very much, although the bandleader’s name—coincidentally—happens to be Matt Pond. Funny, that. But what’s less funny and more affecting is the band’s new record, Emblems, a lush, haunting collection of superbly crafted chamber pop. Pond’s sad-eyed meditations on the doomed nature of all romance is confessional but not twee, obliquely tragic but never mopey. His voice evokes a younger, less arty Peter Gabriel—a mysterious tenor with just the right balance of distance and emotional commitment. The band fills out the tracks with economy, deference and a relaxed, propulsive backbeat that moves the record forward with palpable urgency. Find Nick Drake too dimly existential? Or Rufus Wainwright too self-indulgently theatrical? Matt Pond PA just might be the honest dose of melancholy you’re looking for.