We’re very happy to offer an early listen to today’s premiere – Ponderosa Pine is the second single by Dutch singer-songwriter P.J.M. Bond off his new album Coyote (King of the Island). It’s one of a batch of songs that were captured not only live in the studio but as close as possible to newly hatched – Bond invited four musicians with him into the recording studio, and there he played his new songs for them for the first time. Before any further questions could be asked, the tape was rolling and everyone was on the edge of their seats. As well as the excitement – some might say the gamble – of what such an approach might achieve musically there is an additional purpose to this method: the album is Bond’s riposte to AI music, and makes the case for real music, made by real people.
P.J.M. Bond told Americana UK that “Some songs happen so organically, you get the feeling it was written by some higher power. I believe this is one of the best songs I have written so far. I’m very proud of it. It was inspired by Herbert Huncke’s story “Ponderosa Pine” from his work “The Evening Sun Turned Crimson”, and in this song I imagine escaping everyday chaos by climbing high into a ponderosa pine, thereby embracing the rest and calm offered by nature and by powers older and wiser than ourselves.”
