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NARC
NARC Magazine Trend Setting Article:
As the world grows ever more crazy over the new Arcade Fire album, Cambridge 8-piece The Pony Collaboration seem to offer those of a baroque bent a refreshing alterative to Win Butler’s growing bombast. There’s something nicely analogous about the fact that while Arcade Fire were putting the finishing touches to Neon Bible in their own Church just outside Montreal, The Pony Collaboration were spending every second weekend in the bass player’s bedroom recording their shoe-string debut long player, quietly carving out an intricate, ambitious and imaginative alt-country/chamber-pop/folk niche.
Having formed following the split of their previous incarnation, the altogether more noisy indie-rock Return of Id, The Pony Collaboration marry a lackadaisically lo-fi approach to recording with a determinedly direct approach to writing which plants them firmly on the right side of ramshackle: Sunday morning songs of hope and hopelessness, sound-tracked by strings, glockenspiel, melodica, and piano, all underpinning James Scallan’s hazy howl of a vocal, reminiscent of the scattered shimmer of Sparklehorse.
The album opens with a gentle prelude – the string quartet on ‘Coming Clean’ was recorded in a nearby school hall, the only element of the record not strictly home made – before the first song proper, ‘Giving Up The Ghost’, introduces an almost anaemic acoustica that underscores much of the record, Scallan duetting with Claire Williams, whose tender harmonies add to the drizzling melancholy that is lifted slightly on the forthcoming single ‘Slumming Expedition’ – a charming cross between the Divine Comedy and the Velvet Underground.
‘If Your Love Dies’ is an eloquent, ornate homespun homage to regret, beginning almost as a conversation between the glockenspiel and piano, and the looping, lilting ‘Dust’ is equally lovelorn, leading into ‘The Fast Lane’ – a kick of pace and bouncing melody reminiscent of Cinerama or even the Go-betweens. ‘Don’t Stay’ sees The Pony Collaboration at their most bittersweet – with string arrangements as beautiful as anything on the record, and Scallan and Williams sharing vocal duties once again: his gently distorted pleading a compelling contrast to her softer delivery.
Following on, ‘Lay Of The Land’ is another shift towards sepia-tinged hope dashed by the maudlin of ‘Your Disease’ and menace of ‘Rules Of Thumb’ before the album’s closing tracks proves The Pony Collaboration aren’t afraid of silver linings – ‘Let Go’ is a perfect coda to a great record, it’s gorgeous melody, lazy tempo and effortlessly honest if bashful lyricism a winning winsome combination.
If you like your lo-fi indie-pop with a hint of homespun Americana, or even if you’re still mourning the loss of the Delgados, then The Pony Collaboration could well be the band for you.
The Pony Collaboration play at Newcastle’s Head of Steam on Wednesday 11 April, alongside audacious Swedish post-rockers Once We Were, and Minotaurs. Their debut album is released this year on Series 8 Records.
John Egdell
