matt pond PA - Songs of Disquiet (2020)

matt pond PA remains one of the most consistent acts in American indie pop since emerging from the Philadelphia underground in 1998.

“‘Pillar of Salt’ is a cover we had been tinkering with for years,” guitarist Chris Hansen tells American Songwriter. “We always loved it, but the lyrics seemed especially prescient now. Often, when Matt and I are working on our own, we’re building songs piece by piece. So, we may start with an acoustic guitar and add a beat or a wurlitzer or five more guitars. We’ll go, go, go until an arrangement begins to reveal itself. Once we’ve pushed the song as far as it will let us, we often peel back some of the superfluous bits. With Pillar, that process revealed two different arrangements that spoke to us in different ways and also reinforced each other.”

Meanwhile, the four original songs on Songs of Disquiet speak to the group’s growing comfort with electronic sound. None more convincing than the EP’s lead single “The Start”.

“‘The Start” is the straightforward dive into full-on therapy,” Pond explains of the track, which fans of The Postal Service and The Rentals should take heed. “It is my ego left uncovered in the middle of the road, the attempt to unravel the tangled routes that lead me back to myself. The lightness of the arrangement was meant to support the sense that it’s not a tragedy. There is a triumph in trying to be a better person. Because even though it took a lifetime to figure it out — it was all there from the start.”