Beard, Wives, Denim

2012 release from the Australian band (not to be confused with the critically acclaimed Oregon band who split in '98). In 2010, at a friend's farmhouse in Eagle Bay, Western Australia, Pond piled in with all their instruments, amplifiers, friends, recording equipment and Sam Ford to record Beard Wives Denim. After two weeks of Lord of the Flies-esque bonding with Frisbee and guitars and absolutely no religion or wood chopping or wives or beards, the album was finished. It a whole lot less like Neil Young, the Grateful Dead or the Band than Pond had imagined when the idea started, but it's the thought that counts. Mixed by Kevin Parker and Rob Grant at Poon's Head Studio in Perth, Beard Wives Denim is an audio diary of ten friends' strange, terrible and blissful time in the country trying in vain to be a wholesome family band. It sounds just like it, distorted and woozy and fractured and ultimately nostalgic and loving.