the pony collaboration
Organ
THE PONY COLLABORATION – The Pony Collaboration (Series 8). Maybe it helps that the sun came out and right now we’re basking in the beauty of a breezy spring afternoon? Or maybe this would be just as charming and refreshing on dull wet day? Yes, I think it would. Whatever, this really is delightfully uplifting and positively charming. Delicate, refined, relaxed, very English sounding Americana if you can have such a thing – you can’t, but you know what I mean don’t you? A tea and fine bone china take on that Calixico easiness. Very easy, unforced, natural and they really do sound like they come from Cambridge. Just perfect pop, perfect tunes, perfect production, perfect textures, everything feels just so right. Loaded with warmth and soul and maybe even a hint of breezy Northern Soul in there with the strings and the glockenspiel and melodica and the refined percussion. Positively lazy pop to get lost in for hours and hours – recommended.
Whisperin’ and Hollerin’
THE PONY COLLABORATION wield glockenspeils, melodicas and a veritable assortment of percussion along with a viola and the essential bass, drums and guitars as this 8-strong outfit continues to expand along with a creative vein and a fair old knack for writing brilliant songs. There’s a string quartet too, recorded in a school hall, as the house where the rest of this homemade album took shape wasn’t big enough to accommodate them.
‘Coming Clean’ is a string-enhanced prelude, before the pale beauty of ‘Giving Up The Ghost’ kicks in with a soothing melodica-driven sound, bass heavy, with skitter scattering percussion half-stepping behind the beat. The hazy-laziness of the duetting male/female vocal harmonies are tinged with sadness as tears well up to this melancholy creation. James Scallan and Claire Williams sing it like it is, and the unfolding helpings of irony tinged regret simply pour forth as this album unfolds.
The knock-bang drums introduce the hollow what ifs and tightrope walking sanity on the yellow brick road to love. Easy clapping cymbal-tapping and steeped in howling FX, the downtrodden tempo can’t quite submerge the uplifting sense of hope as the track splutters to a synth-driven close.
Looping acoustica chimes in the pop-pulse of tracks like ‘Dust’ and ‘The Fast Lane’, the latter bouncing in hot pursuit of fast living, stopping only occasionally as it grinds to a stomping crescendo. String-fuelled anxieties are thrown aside as the paranoia is submerged with a melodic guitar injection.
Likewise ‘The Lay Of The Land’ hazes forth in a non-communicative storm of self-delusion, all sepia-toned and filled with positive thought and hope. The glockenspeil and melodica add subtle melodies whilst at the low end the bass vibrates to the snare of the drums. Everything is somehow threaded in strings and the stories told unfold in slow motion, as images linger, even in the faster tracks.
I’m still listening for the sounds of DIY coming from the house next door, as the atonal thud of ‘Rules Of Thumb’ unfolds heavily, the tit for tat harmonies blurring the bitter and lonely line between love and hate. The string quartet takes the thought processes and makes them spiral wordlessly out of control as the vocals loop ever onwards.
A brilliant and beautiful debut long-player, and with its release comes the opportunity to see this Cambridge collective on a short April tour of the UK. Tim, if you’re reading this, and you need a reviewer for the April 13th Manchester date, I’m yer man!
Finishing with the futility of a regretfully destroyed love, this hugely impressive and instantly endearing collection draws to a fear-drenched and clinging close. As a homegrown response to all things ‘Americana’, this oozes quality and delicate charm.
10/10 – Mabs
Drowned in Sound
It’s hard to picture what goes on in most student bedsits these days, but one can imagine that studying is definitely near the bottom of the agenda. Which is all good as far as we’re concerned if this record, the debut album by Cambridge/London eight-piece The Pony Collaboration, is anything to go by. Student generalisations aside (cue e-mails from band members’ relatives insisting their sons/daughter left with a healthy 2:1 in architecture years ago), this record covers about every emotion possible within its half- hour or so, and crosses a number of different musical avenues on both sides of the Atlantic along the way.
Largely centring around the dual vocal interplay of James Scallan and Claire Williams, The Pony Collaboration sounds like one of those records that was conceived in the first murmurs of Spring, recorded on a hot Summer’s day and then given its first public airing during the hazy breeze of Autumn.
In parts there is a sense of laziness – but in a good way – that almost gives the impression they could knock another half-dozen records out like this for fun in the future.At other times it feels like a group of friends entering the first stages of maturity – imagine if Los Campesinos!’s elder siblings formed a band and you’d be on the right track.
Scallan’s voice – occasionally fragile like that of Bob Wratten (of Field Mice and Trembling Blue Stars fame), sometimes pent up and taut with fury like Aidan Moffatt at his fieriest (’Slumming Expedition’), then plaintive and poignant like a youthful David Gedge (’Let Go’) – sounds at its most charmed and tranquil on the duet with Williams on ‘Don’t Stay’, a song which inevitably draws comparisons with the likes of Belle And Sebastian.
The musicianship is also a joy to behold – despite the plethora of styles and instrumentation throughout the record, at no point do the band feel the need to bludgeon the listener’s ears to death in a halo of noise, which is simply down to the fact that there is nothing really negative to hide about this record. All in all, then, a good day at the office. Or should that be the student union?
8/10 – Dom Gourlay
Americana UK
Listening to these songs I was (again) trying to pinpoint the differences between a British take on America and an American one. For the Ponies it comes across as a kind of shyness, a reticence to be in the spotlight you’d seldom get from a US band. You can locate them between the ramshackle introspection of the Broken Family Band and the mannered preciseness of Pacific Ocean Fire (both thanked in the credits). They have a lot going for them – two voices, James Scallen deep and slow and Clare Williams a Caitlin Cary presence (a restrained Redlands Palomino Company). They use a broad range of instruments in a subtle integrated way including a string quartet on a number of songs. ‘Dust’ reminds me of the Young Marble Giants (another quintessentially English band), ‘If Your Love Dies’ starts with glockenspiel and piano discussing melody, and ‘The Fast Lane’ is Liberty Belle era Go-Betweens and quite lovely with the strings a warm invitation to dive in and enjoy.
‘Don’t Stay’ uses the strings to weave a more melancholic pattern; this beauty is the one that anchors the whole record. They have a good ear for sadness – ‘Your Disease’ is even more maudlin, the strings soft pillows over a mattress of aching throbbing bass heart, slow-motion heartbreak. ‘Let Go’ sees them as an Americana version of the Delgados, the male/female vocals, the strings, the gorgeous pop melody. Everything is in place; these Ponies are going to be at the front of the British Americana race.
7/10 - David Cowling
Is This Music?
The Pony Collaboration?s self-titled debut is a sweet, understated grower of an album, which combines elements of acoustic folk and Americana with a certain tweeness that?s wholly the British Isles. James Scallan and Claire Williams share vocal duties, the latter?s hazy tones in particular as warm and familiar as tea and crumpets. Instrumentally there?s a little bit of everything in the mix: eight band members on guitars, melodica, drums and twinkly glockenspiel, with the addition of a string quartet meaning that several tracks had to be recorded in a local school hall as everybody couldn?t fit into the studio. While upbeat the up-beat sunny sounds of ?Dust? and ?The Fast Lane? are guaranteed to raise a smile, it is ultimately the perfect melancholy of ?Your Disease? that provides the album?s standout track. There?s nothing particularly new about much of this ? think the Lucksmiths and The Boy Least Likely To for starters ? but that doesn?t detract from its loveliness.
Lisa-Marie Ferla
REPEAT
The Pony Collaboration were formed around 1886, have played about three gigs, and looked likely to decompose before ever producing anything you could sling your coat on. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration – but they’ve been trundling along since at least 2003 and they’ve only just put the finishing touches to their debut album. Good news is, it’s been worth the wait. Those old enough to remember their early shows (those were the days, man) won’t be disappointed, as their slackness has also extended to their songwriting. Don’t worry, this is a good thing, as it means much of the early promise that got us all excited in the first place is on show – “Giving up the Ghost”, the awesome “Dust”, “If Your Love Dies” and “Slumming Expedition” are all reworked but lose none of their clout. The Pony Collaboration rose from the ashes of Cambridge indie noise monkeys Return of Id after they’d moved to London to be lazy students. It’s lo-fi indie with a difference – interesting to listen to, instead of just painfully twee. There are all sorts of interesting instruments making cameos, a lovely female backing vocal and the kind of tiny-ranged male lead that made The Pastels, Sonic Youth and The Wedding Present so utterly compelling (in fact “(You’re In) The Fast Lane” would sit comfortably on any Cinerama album). Closer “Let Go” is the perfect note to end on, summing up all that’s great about them – honest lyrics, a lazy tempo and imaginative arrangements. But then it had to be good – I expect it to be a good decade before the follow up rears its wizened head.
Chris Marling
It’s a shame I’ve recieved this at the start of summer. Even though it has been compared to ‘Americana’ (whatever the hell that is) but with an ‘English twist’ and given that ‘Americana’ is supposed to be summery (as far as I know) it really has come at the wrong time. That is by no means a derisory comment. I rather like it. It’s got a lot of qualities to it which make me think of Beck and again, Arcade Fire (must be the latest craze the kids are getting into). You won’t want to set fire to anything after listening to it (unless you’re wanting to set fire to old photographs of loved ones but no one has photographs anymore. It’s all digital. So you’ll be deleting photographs off your hard drive) but it’s nice, melodic, gentle and loving. Like a nice, big hug whilst lying on a haystack. I imagine this is best listened to whilst your a little bit sauced or you’re driving down a deserted highway with ‘the top down’. As mentioned before, there’s something autumnal about it. Something about the dying of the seasons. Yet it’s not depressing. Not to me anyway.
Richey Peaches
I reviewed the Pony Collaboration’s eponymous debut album in March 2006, when it was a slipcase with no label home to go to, but as it’s now been remastered Led Zep or Bowie style (well, sort of) and given a proper release through Series 8, and good on ‘em, the powers that be (ie Rosey) thought I should do it again.
Truth is I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by a lot of so-called ‘new’ music recently, meaning the rather splendid Ponies album has rarely been far from my ears. It’s kind of indie, but certainly isn’t alt. or any other form of country, and anyone who says otherwise must have a very limited musical vocabulary (including the muppet who wrote their press release). I prefer to describe it as perfect pop – the kind of thing Serge Gainsborough, and latterly the Wedding Present spin-off Cinerama, have been so deft at producing.
There is a relaxing lounge feel throughout, peppered with dramatic yet subtle storytelling at its finest. And there’s no showing off either – while beautifully performed the songs aren’t showy in an individual way, rather being a sum of their considerable parts. Instruments such as piano keyboard, melodica, viola and glockenspiel really run the show, while strummed guitars fill the gaps and drive the sound, giving a cinematic impact that laps at you with the power of an ocean but the subtlety of a gentle wave.
Lyrically its boy meets girl, heartache, what might have been and all that lovey dovey stuff all the way. That’s not a bad thing though, when its done right. While you’d struggle to extract a single decent rhyming couplet from a hundred dogshit r’n'b wastes of space, you get a good three or four per song here. The male-female vocal mix is a must for this kind of stuff, and is duly delivered. Neither vocal is strong or overbearing but both ooze personality and the harmonies are
lovely.
As an album it’s littered with uplifting pop gems played with passion, feeling and gusto that you’ll be hard pushed to beat out there right now. It seems a bit pointless to pick out individual tracks, as it would suggest there’s some duffers, which there aren’t. But “Let Go” really stands out – rolling drums, great lyrics, subtle keys and gloch, with souring viola and harmonies in the chorus. Wonderful stuff.
Live, it’s as if they’ve discovered something brilliant – all smiles and childish enthusiasm, bouncing around and grinning at each other. Sat in your bedroom or sitting on the train with your Walkman, you’ll be exactly the same. Enjoy.
Chris Marling
Muzic-zine
So it begins with a gentle strum, the acoustic guitar played with precision and skill. It’s then joined by a piano and the faint hum of electric guitar and a violin. But then something odd happens, the ending is twisted into something else and the music slips away. That’s how The Pony Collaboration’s debut greats you, a perfect slice of pure pleasure music. This opening salvo may only be just over a minute long, but it sets the scene perfectly. From here on in this record will pour itself over you, slowly revealing its beauty to the listener.
The set up is pretty simple but the sound is sparsely arranged and yet sounds big and lush. The acoustic guitar augmented by ample accordion and strings, but the production is bright the breezy allowing the songs to breathe and take on a life of their own. The vocals are reminiscent of The Delgado’s; the duelling male and female voices in perfect harmony. There’s also a hint of The Sunday’s in their clean and clear pop approach, but The Pony Collaboration have more their feet placed firmly in more folk roots.
From the jangly “Slumming Expedition” with its faint whiff of desperation and loss, a xylophone picking it’s way through the chorus, to the upbeat album closer “Let Go” and its shuffling drums and grand orchestral chorus that brings to mind Belle and Sebastian this is a record of pure and unadulterated pleasure. Though this could easily descend into twee very quickly, its lyrics are too real and, at times brutal, to slip down that alley. This is a sparkling and original debut that deserves to soundtrack the summer the country over.
Richard J.L. Hughes
MusicOMH
I’ve been thinking about what inspires the kind of active and creative (and these two words are essential) “fanaticism” that accompanied, say (probably the best example in recent memory of genuine poetic affinity), early Belle and Sebastian releases. It’s an interesting thought to chew over in a few spare moments if you have them, and I’ve concluded, rather simply, that it’s the magic of pop music to draw out a certain passion.
Pop encapsulates moments, makes legends for our future and past, and when a band does it with the kind of style, poetry and passion to draw a certain level of empathy, the listener exults, and troubadours set sail. Oh, to make them exult!
There have been many before B & S and many after who have alternately risen to the heights and fallen short of the kind of heady blueprint for modern pop set in the days of the Velvets, Hurrah!, Felt, Go-Betweens, Blue Orchids, etc., who themselves were among the first to break off from the dreary orthodoxy and follow R’n'b sources to new realms of emotional liberation. Pop has kept repeating and renewing itself since, and of course always will, but how do newcomers The Pony Collaboration rate in the mix? How “deep” do they run?
The Ponies’ sound is not revolutionary or immediately enrapturing. They don’t have that immediate voice to strike deep at the heart, and they’re not quite as clever and evocative with melodies and instrumentals as, say, Camera Obscura. But let’s face it who is? The Pony Collaboration evokes more humble haze than trembling stars, and certain tracks stand out strong in a set of low-key, slow-burning musing.
A highlight is If Your Love Dies, which has the soft romanticism of Hefner in a less outlandish incarnation, and also a strange orchestral beauty that enriches rather than contradicts. The dangers of orchestral pretensions married to lo-fi ethos are rife, and throughout the album TPC scale them pretty well, never really sounding over-produced. Another highlight is Giving Up the Ghost, which has the kind of weary regret we can all relate to from time to time and a touch of melodica that rides the percussion like a homesick spectre.
It’s a touch of folk and a touch of the blues that sits really well in TPC leader James Scallan’s pallet of faded colours, a touch that Slumming Expedition makes into more of a flourish, parping along as it does with dusty country edges into a atmospheric anthem of loss and hope. TPC have the knack of pushing the boat out just far enough as not to get carried away in choppy waters, and even if it does mean they’re more of The Beautiful South than the Magnetic Fields, it doesn’t matter.
A track I really like here is Dust, which bursts out of co-singer Claire Williams’ tear-speckled vocals into a sprawling track of orchestral folk grace and shimmer. Maybe Williams could have been used more throughout the LP, as she undoubtedly gives an extra melancholy texture, as on the really quite exquisite duet The Fast Lane, which is one to hang out at the front of your Spring mixtape, strolling in the sun as a does with a tinge of love and doubt in a really quite special manner.
More of this kind of stuff and we’d be really shouting from the rooftops. As it is, we merely have some new melodies that’ll fit snugly into our lives, as we continue to kiss someone else with our utmost passion. The pop landscape remains relatively unthreatened, but TPC stand in elegant pastures, waiting for the eruption.
3/5 – Neil Jones
Boomkat
Apparently, Londoners The Pony Collaboration see themselves as providing a British take on Americana, which is not only quite the contradiction in terms, but a statement that doesn’t do them nearly the justice they deserve. This debut album of sweet, very English sounding pop features an expansive line-up of players and orchestral instrumentation, with a luscious string section on hand throughout the record to enhance emotional clobber at key moments. Although seldom extending beyond the vein of rich chamber pop they’ve tapped into, The Pony Collaboration work electronics into their opener, with some digitally pulverised beats providing a grimy backdrop for the piano, acoustic guitar and viola that constitute ‘Coming Clean’’s main body. Further into the album, the glockenspiel and boy-girl vocals of ‘If Your Love Dies’ are achingly sweet, with lazy handclaps guiding the song to its amiable chorus. Lovely.
Room 13
Pony and trap? Don’t bet your savings on it…
A predominantly acoustic folksy album recorded in a spare room and the local school hall at that might not sound like ideal fodder for a website that proclaims “Where Music Rocks” but you’d be wrong. Music doesn’t have to be loud or brash to rock you, it just has to be good – and in that sense – The Pony Collaboration rock.
Perhaps I should ease you in gently. You’ll probably get a better idea of what this album is about if I list the instruments used in its production: viola, guitar, melodica, synth, piano, keyboard, glockenspiel, bass, drums and guitar. Oh and something called a bumflute…please don’t tempt me…I’ve wrestled with my conscience enough already. So anyway, there are no fuzz boxes, no effects pedals, no double-necked flying Vs, no raucous drum solos and definitely no vocoders on this one folks. As Hear’Say would say, it’s pure and simple…
After the gentle, meandering intro of ‘Coming Clean’, (a great album setter-upper) a smooth melodica and harmonised vocals bring ‘Giving Up The Ghost’ into fuzzy yet discernable focus. Melodic, smooth grooves are the name of the game here and the eight-member strong players that comprise The Pony Collaboration prove themselves to be eminently qualified to take a hit for the team in that regard.
While not as folk inflected as The Eighteenth Day of May or as resolutely country heavy as The Deadstring Brothers, The Pony Collaboration nevertheless bears palpable resemblances to both. Their brand of charmingly lazy acoustic pop Americana will no doubt find a wider audience than the devoted following they’ve already secured.
On listening to this album, I’m sure some of you musos would proclaim that if there’s an element lacking from ‘The Pony Collaboration’ it’s a clutch of decisively standout tracks. I don’t believe this is worthy criticism. This album should be (and indeed almost demands to be – albeit incredibly politely) judged and enjoyed as a complete work. There’s no reason to bounce around the disc searching for the ONE song, they all play off each other, creating a whole that’s unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts. This album’s a winding trip not a one-stop-chop-shop blast on the Northern line.
Upcoming single (released this month) ‘Slumming Expedition’ is a joyous and cheeky nod to Pulp’s ‘Common People’ bonded with a mischievous glockenspiel, while ‘Dust’, ‘The Fast Lane’ and ‘The Lay Of The Land’ highlight the seductive vocals of Claire Williams, which effortlessly combine with frontman James Scallan’s to create a lush and alluring groove.
Lyrically, the album is self-reflexive, melancholic yet undeniably romantic. There’s a deep stream of discreet dynamism that softly caresses every carefully constructed couplet and which grows evermore affecting as the album spins.
‘Rules Of Thumb’ and ‘Let Go’ round the album off in great style with some great support from a string quartet the bands apparently had knocking around the place – and it gives the album just the lift it needs to linger in the memory and demand a second spin.
While ‘The Pony Collaboration’ certainly isn’t the most innovative, pioneering or genre-busting album making the rounds, it IS a confidently composed, beautifully arranged and composed work that never pretends to be anything it’s not. It revels in its simplicity and the band play to their strengths; never once taking a shot at anything they’re not comfortable with. If anyone thinks that’s a bad thing, it’s not.
Some bands exist to challenge musical boundaries; they’re there to push back at the establishment and the public at large; to shout “fuck you all” in our faces and trigger a revolution. The Pony Collaboration isn’t one of them. And as all great revolutionaries need their rest, I imagine this is an album that The Clash or Siouxsie & The Banshees might unwind to after a hard day spent gobbing at coppers, shooting pigeons and waiting for the man.
So I guess when all’s said and done, ‘The Pony Collaboration’ is perfect for the Sunday morning fry-up and monolithic paper supplements – although I’ve still never met anyone who doesn’t chuck the ‘Family’ section straight in the bin…the recycling bin obviously…I wouldn’t want to expose myself as an environmental criminal now would I?
9/13 – Stuart Anderson
