Pond's Nicholas Allbrook announces new solo album with lead cut "Jackie"

"Jackie" is the first outing from Allbrook's forthcoming album, and follows his January track "If I Hadn’t Met Feefee Brown", which was released on Bandcamp to raise funds for the Kimberley Flood Relief. The new song lands with a Alex Haygarth-directed video.

"This song is about my friend (whose name isn’t Jackie) who died in 2021," Allbrook explains. "She was fantastic and the news left me with familiar feelings of guilt and regret and ‘why didn’t I do more or know better’. I don’t usually get hit with creative bolts while running, but by the canal once in London I was struck with the hopeful image of her rowing away from the earth that had been so hurtful and hard, on a black lake surrounded by stars, finally finding peace and silence. It felt nice to think about death like that, bathed in pale silver light rather than just cold. I got lots of instrumental help from Nathaniel Hoho, who bizarrely and brilliantly put in the nature documentary voice about the giant panda which should never work but somehow does."

Allbrook's new solo album is titled Manganese, and will follow his 2019 album Wabi sabi bruto bruta, and Pond's 2021 album 9. The new full-length is produced by Allbrook and HOKO (Nathaniel Hoho).

Tracklist:

1. Commodore
2. Babbel
3. Manganese
4. Jackie
5. The Endless Jetty
6. Vale the Chord
7. Mazda
8. Round Round the Moon and All
9. The Night Before You Flew