pôt-pot

pôt-pot share new single "22° Halo" from their debut album 'Warsaw 480km' out September 19th on Felte.

This week, Irish/Portuguese quintet pôt-pot share another glimpse at their forthcoming debut album, ‘Warsaw 480km’, with new single "22° Halo". The album is set for release on September 19th via Felte.

The new single, “22° Halo”, opens the record at a driving pace, elevated by searing amplifier tone and breathy, overdriven vocal harmonies from Waldron-Hyden, Sara Leslie, and Elaine Malone that seem to coo directly in your ear, at once intimate and detached.  A narcotic haze develops beneath the taut drums and sinewy foreground, as dueling guitars threaten to erupt into frenzy but relent as the final seconds fade into fog. 

Commenting on the track, Waldon-Hyden says:

"I’m fascinated in seemingly endless cycles in nature, and how I can relate that back to myself. At that time, I was repeating habits/cycles that weren’t very good for me, and this song was just a way of me admitting to myself what I was afraid to say out loud:

I was doing/thinking/saying things I shouldn’t be and it needed to change. The music came from a jam between the band and grew from there.

The night I finalised the lyrics we were walking home from a session and a 22° halo was shining in the sky, it was my first time ever seeing one."

On 'Warsaw 480km' , the quintet infuse the propulsive grooves of krautrock with a phosphorescent psych-rock radiance, all underscored by harmonium drones, hypnotic male-female vocal harmonies, and deep layers of rough-hewn texture.  Evolved primarily from demos by multi-instrumentalist and lead vocalist Mark Waldron-Hyden during a period of grief and personal upheaval, the album came to life through a series of live, full-band studio sessions that document an exceptional array of talents, unified in an embrace of raw catharsis with a sweetly sinister edge.

A defining element of 'Warsaw 480km' is its impressive range of influences and atmospheric topographies.  As Waldron-Hyden describes,

“I wrote the first batch of songs while not really living in one place, so I think they have a kind of transient feel to them – developing them with the band helped me process an era in which I was emotionally freewheeling, so they remind me equally of the beautiful experience we shared as a creative unit and the difficult times that inspired them.” 

Lead single, “WRSW”, exemplifies this complexity, as its rugged rhythmic backbone carries tremolo guitars, woozy harmonium, and a half-spoken, Lou Reed-indebted vocal line in which the verse and chorus beautifully blur together. 

Above all, 'Warsaw 480km' is an album that achieves its richness and aura from deliberate economy, as Waldron-Hyden explains,

“Ollie [Oliver Smith] and Sara [Sara Leslie] are experts at getting the most out of one pedal, a shitty amp, and a guitar they borrowed, a result of innate talent and years of experience; they use some modulation for dronier passages, but it’s their playing styles and understanding of ‘the vibe’ that are the secret ingredients.” 

This kind of intuitive connection and collaboration is incredibly rare, and with these ten pieces, pôt-pot accomplish something truly rapturous as they alchemise deep pain into a luminous reverie.

Live dates

Sept 21 - Clonakilty Guitarfest, Cork, Ireland, 

Oct 2 - Ireland Music Week, Dublin 

‘Warsaw 480km’ 

Pre-save here