Stream: Matt Pond PA, ‘Spaceland’ (feat. Matthew Caws)

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Matt Pond PA (Photo by Sean Hansen)

Singer-songwriter Matt Pond launched the project that would become Matt Pond PA in the late 1990s and since then has released 14 albums and an equal number of EPs. Pond’s heart-on-the-sleeve chamber-pop, especially on albums such as “Emblems” (2004) and “Several Arrows Later” (2005), earned the band a modest but devout following.

By the band’s second decade, Pond was ready to advance its sound, and in 2015 released the album “The State of Gold,” with its more ambitious production. After a five-year tussle with the label that released it, Doghouse Records, Matt Pond PA recently regained the rights to the album, and on Sept. 24, “The State of Gold” — remastered, re-sequenced and partially re-recorded, will be reissued.

“Spaceland” originally was the closing track on the album; now it’s the first. Yes, it’s a tribute to the Silver Lake club where Matt Pond PA played his first West Coast show all those years ago, and hearing the newly recorded version, which features Matthew Caws and Louie Lino of Nada Surf, is sure to induce pangs of nostalgia for devotees of the now-shuttered L.A. venue.

Here’s what Pond says about it:

“Spaceland … [is] a hazy vision of the first club we played on the West Coast, a place where dreams and reality collide — beautiful palm trees overlooking littered sidewalks. We waited on that sidewalk for hours, killing time until the bar-back opened the gate to let us in.

“Spaceland had a glass smoking room in the back and a Galaga machine next to the bar. I dropped quarter after quarter into that machine while we waited to soundcheck. The green room was a closet, the stage always felt two feet too small. I loved that space.

“When we got the rights back to ‘The State of Gold,’ I knew that I wanted to change the order and remaster the album. And I knew that I wanted to re-record Spaceland and put it first.

“The song has always felt alive to me. It has an undeniable pulse. Matthew Caws and Louie Lino from Nada Surf found the pulse and gave Spaceland a new life. An uncontrollable smile overtakes my face every time I think about Matthew’s new bridge.”

||| Stream: “Spaceland”