Matt Pond PA’s The Ballad of the Natural Lines is the sound of a man who loves driving fast and far, but who now balances that desire with a hard-won appreciation for slowing down and gazing in the rearview mirror to find beauty in the churned-up dust.

This broadened landscape, where Pond gets closer to the bone than ever, is one of many compelling aspects of the first Matt Pond PA album of all-new material since 2020’s A Collection of Bees, Pt. 1. After thirteen acclaimed albums, numerous singles and EPs, songs in film and television, and multiple tours to a devoted fanbase, Pond has made some significant life changes.

“I stopped drinking and lying,” he says. “Initially, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to write songs, or parts of my personality would fall away. Now, I don’t think enough parts of my personality fell away.” Or, as he puts it over chiming electric guitar in exuberant, eponymous album opener, “I was born to be awkward / You were born to be shy /Now that the lies are untied we can see straight through our skin / Give it up to the sheltering sky / A natural line.”

The Ballad of the Natural Lines frequently offers the fascination – and occasional terror – of perspective applied to family, death-defying friendships, pivotal encounters, the overwhelming gift of another day. Although Pond’s creative life began in the refuge of the family basement – “I was comfortable there,” he says, “I knew how to survive” – he now observes the Connecticut of his often-harrowing youth as “a map of beautiful mistakes denoted by city names: Hartford, Greenwich, New London, and New Haven.” In “Connecticut,” – a co-write with longtime Matt Pond PA cohort/multi-instrumentalist Chris Hansen – he defiantly sings, over Hansen’s melodic, Joy Division-y bass line, “You can take the kid from Connecticut / But you can’t take the cut from the kid.” From his current Hudson Valley home, he adds, “My Connecticut is based on mindlessness and constant escape. I know every inch of the highway in that state.”

Prior to sober songwriting, Pond says, “I was not yet at a point where I could look back with clarity.” After his 2023 marriage to fellow singer-songwriter Anya Marina, to whom The Ballad of the Natural Lines is dedicated, Pond found stability enabled him not only to take stock of the past, it sharpened his skills as a co-producer – a role he shares with Hansen.

Throughout The Ballad of the Natural Lines, lyrics allude to – or brazenly reveal – a painful childhood, the astonishment of ardor, and acceptance of one’s shadows. Some of this is new territory for Matt Pond PA. “I’ve never wanted to reveal too much of myself,” Pond says. “But some of that reluctance has prevented me from being specific, or really getting to the heart of things.”

The Ballad of the Natural Lines enfolds those revelations in irresistible, hook-laden melodies, verses that sound like choruses, guitar work alternately delicate and muscular, high lonesome pedal steel, occasionally unusual rhythms, and plaintive, propulsive cello, courtesy longstanding Matt Pond PA member Hilary James. Of James, Pond says, “When Chris and I share our skeletal songs, she knows right where to put the organs. Almost all the parts she writes are beyond what we could ever suggest or imagine.”

The connecting thread in this varied sound palette is Pond’s burnished voice, stronger than ever, here tender and vulnerable, there blood-thick with drama. “I like albums that feel like life or death,” he says. “I like people who are passionate about what they make, not to the point of being insane, but nearly.”

Matt Pond’s road to this new phase began a few years ago with a clivia plant, flourishing now in his Kingston, NY home, and immortalized in “The Clivia in the Bedroom,” one of a trio of gorgeous, atmospheric The Ballad of the Natural Lines instrumentals. He explains, “The clivia is a lily that blooms in February, telling you, ‘Winter will be over soon.’ It was my first house plant. I said, ‘If I don’t kill it, I’ll get a dog, and move up from there.’ Did that. Then I got a yard for the first time. Then I was allowed to have an adult relationship.”

That relationship inspired The Ballad of the Natural Lines' unabashedly besotted, swoon-y love songs. On “These Wings” Pond’s voice arcs over pulsing acoustics, and Hilary James’ ELO-esque strings. He sings, “Love the danger / In falling in / Love the danger / In falling in love.” Pond says the testimonial, unpredictably rhythmic “Lost Languages,” is “where love peaks on the album. I can nearly accept myself in this song. Change, new languages, transformation are all possible within a span of two minutes and fifty-three seconds.” Buoyed by entwined cellos, he sings, “Found a language here with you / Yes, I finally found my place /Spent my whole life sinking /I don’t need to run away.”

“Risky Business” harkens back to classic, pre-rock n’ roll songcraft, a supper club crooner inspired by equal parts Ink Spots, and, in a recitation, singer-songwriter Faye Webster. While the song evokes warm, domestic bliss between Pond and his harmonizing partner, he asserts: “We’re still wild animals playing with fire in the kitchen. We’re both gentle tyrants.”

Emboldened by that tyrannical bliss, Pond offers evocative, memory-laden tunes “Little Signs,” “Musik Express,” “Korea,” “Living Room Stage,” and “Goldie.” Observed through a lens of wonder, these excursions into the past are alternately scary and life-affirming – sometimes both. It all dovetails neatly, yet the prolific Pond says that when he and Hansen were assembling material, “There were no preconceptions for how the album was going to be. But yes, these songs tell a story.” That story, intentionally conceived or not, is one Pond has wanted to tell for a long time.

Prior to The Ballad of the Natural Lines, Pond considered retiring the Matt Pond PA moniker and starting over from scratch. But looking back cleareyed at the version of himself who created all that music, he realized the band name wasn’t the change he needed to make. It was his life. Once done, the songs on The Ballad of the Natural Lines, and the story, fell together. Tying it all together in closing track “Winged Horse,” Pond describes a new vantage point from the back of an airborne beast. He observes a life disentangled: “Hovering in the sky, and seeing all those arterial roads and rivers, realizing how they connect — the punchline revealed.”

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A murderous girl with a spine of steel. An asteroid hurtling toward a ruminating woman. Shards of glass leading to a dark, friendly place.

Welcome to the provocative vision of singer-songwriter Anya Marina’s stunning new album Asteroid, her most assured work yet. Almost two decades into a distinctive career encompassing songs featured in Twilight: New Moon, Gossip Girl, and Grey’s Anatomy, an award-winning web series (Anya Marina: Indie-pendent Woman), seven albums, three EPs, and extensive touring with artists ranging from Jason Mraz to Spoon to superstar standup Nikki Glaser, the riveting performer / creative powerhouse is looking back, taking stock in song. Marina calls Asteroid “a coming-of-age story about a late bloomer. This record is about growing up, becoming fully who I am, and celebrating it.”

Most of Asteroid came fast on the heels of Marina’s relocation to the Hudson Valley. What she describes as “melodies that sound like strange Disney album B-sides, or bizzarro cousins of cabaret, classical music, Bossa nova, or jazz,” arrived quickly, “like tuning into a faraway frequency on a radio dial.”

Whereas Marina’s previous studio release Queen of the Night (2020) was recorded piecemeal over months and featured layers of synthetic sound, Asteroid came together quickly, mostly in the Woodstock, NY barn studio of producer / guitarist Kevin Salem (Rachael Yamagata, Mike Doughty), who favors a more organic, spare approach.

The deft humor in much of Asteroid is no accident. Touring since 2019 with friend and former roommate, comedian Nikki Glaser, has made a big difference in Marina’s life, both personally and artistically. “Opening for Nikki has made me a better performer and songwriter,” Marina says. “I’ve learned to crystallize things better, get to the point. Playing to 2,000 comedy fans can be very daunting. It will whip you into shape fast. I love it.”

With Asteroid, Marina feels comfortable in her own skin at last, excited to begin again. “Something about these songs feels young,” she says. “I’m finally learning how to take care of myself, how to say no to certain things, how to be more involved in the recording process. I wanted to make the album of my life. And I’ve done that, hands down.”

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Bathtub Cig is the intimate depression pop project of Hilary James. Born in a Minneapolis bedroom, it is an honest attempt at coping with her long struggle with mental health. The new EP, coming out September 2024 is entitled "Good Mourning, I love you" and is about love, loss, and moments of joy during a time of intense mourning- the death of Hilary's mom.

The first single out now, "Red Pine", is a determinedly joyous sapphic bop about falling in love despite the inevitable risk of loss. The song has been described in the press as "an exceptional piece of art" and "Gorgeous vocals and some guitar work with a bit of a Big Thief quality that expands and delights with an emotional sensitivity"

Bathtub Cig will be self-releasing an EP in mid September. More singles will follow in the fall and another single will be released to coincide with the winter tour.

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