Pond make a splash with Live At The BBC EP

Pond group shot with psychedelic effects

(Image credit: Jim Bob The Homie)

Aussies Pond have released Live At The BBC – an EP containing music originally recorded for the Marc Riley show on BBC6 Music.

“The BBC is still magic,” says singer Nicholas Allbrook, who's a former touring member of Tame Impala . “I still get giddy walking past those Derbyshire-Churchill-Fab4 spirits. We all get nostalgic for a time and place 1000 light years from my mortal innings. Now we also live at the BBC, like my nameless-faceless childhood heroes.”

The original version of lead track, Take Me Avalon I'm Young, appeared on last year's 9 album – recently released as a deluxe edition with bonus tracks. Says Allbrook of the new version, which you can hear below, "When we heard the mix we were really happy with how it sounded.

“Take Me Avalon is honestly one of my favourite songs to play live at the moment. It sort of exerts its own uplifting energising force on me despite the before or the after. Even inside headphones in a brightly lit studio in the morning it felt real energetic.”

The EP also includes reworkings America’s Cup, Human Touch and Toast.

POND - Take Me Avalon I'm Young (Live at the BBC) [Official Audio] - YouTube

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Pond Live At The BBC EP cover — (Image credit: Press)

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.