by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Last year Brooklyn’s Pons released their second full length, The Liquid Self, an ambitious concept album about the succumbing to madness at sea. While that could have been a recipe for pretension in the wrong hands, the trio play it loose and boisterous, their blend of glam punk, art rock, and no wave inclinations are more of a blown out psychedelic headtrip than anything overtly high brow. They keep that reckless spirit alive with "Can’t Stand It,” a berserk cover of the James Brown song as you’ve never heard it before. Out today via Dedstrange Records (A Place To Bury Strangers, Goblin Daycare, Wah Together), the band trade in the godfather of soul’s traditional funky sound for something a bit freakier, a bit noisier, a bit more deranged.
All the hall marks of the original are still there, buried deep in the muck and scuzz, transformed and processed into something unrecognizable. Pons let the sputtering groove unfurl into a seasick clamor of manipulated vocals and abrasive drums, the entire thing teetering off the rails from the moment they dive in to the moment they come spinning out. It’s a frantic reimagining that keeps the tempo in full gear even as they wiggle their way into heavily psychedelic territory. Recorded with producer Jeff Berner (Shilpa Ray, Russian Baths, Desert Sharks), Pons enact a layer of fuzz that bodes well for the song’s explosive chaos.