“When you look back on something, you see it in reverse,” Matt Pond tells American Songwriter. In this instance, the indie rocker and founder of New York-based band, Matt Pond PA, is referring to his 2015 album The State of Gold. This year (September 24), Pond along with band members Chris Hansen and Shawn Alpay remastered and partially re-recorded the album. The band also flipped the tracklisting so that the first song became the last and vice versa.
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“I just thought, ‘Oh, I want this back to front.’ Then I listened and it works,” Pond continues. “I thought about the [original] last song, which was now in the first song, which is ‘Spaceland.’ I like putting some of my favorite songs last on an album. I don’t think that people listen to more than a couple of songs that much anymore, but I’m fine with that. So I thought, ‘Okay, I love this song, and it’s one of my most simple visions of life and of touring and everything we’ve done.”
Now, the upbeat “Spaceland” is the first track listeners hear.
With “Spaceland” sitting as the opening track, Pond says he “couldn’t be happier” with the way that this album has been carefully reimagined. “I don’t think we severely changed anything because the same mastering person did [The State of Gold] again, but we just looked at it and let it take a little bit of a breath,” Pond says.
The State of Gold originally took Pond and the band about three years to write and record. Inspiration for the twelve-track record emerged after Pond realized that he could never truly escape music—the pull of song had followed him on his travels from sunny Florida and California to the snowy winters in the Hudson Valley.
“[I] realize[d] that there really isn’t anything I love more than writing songs,” Pond states.
Pond’s deep fondness for his craft created The State of Gold six years ago, and this devotion led him to revisit the record once the dust had settled around a label dispute. Consequently, the latest version of the record is an impeccable, yet backward, leap into indie rock. Pond’s sound is electric and enlightened lending itself to a complete listening experience.
“I’m just trying to reach people,” Pond concludes.
Listen to The State of Gold by Matt Pond PA below, and check out the album’s acoustic companion here.
Photo by Anya Marina
