Poi Dog Pondering is the love child of singer-songwriter Frank Orrall, who first cast his musical net in Hawaii in 1986. After marching across fields, streets and streams performing their almost mystical blend of atmospheric otherworld music, the ever-expanding troupe eventually came to settle in Austin, where they first captured the public eye in 1987. Three Columbia albums — PdP, Wishing Like a Mountain, Thinking Like the Sea and Volo Volo — made the band a franchise. In 1992, Poi Dog Pondering relocated to Chicago, where the band remains a vibrant part of that city’s fertile music scene (the band was recently named Best Rock/Pop Act in the Chicago Reader’s 2009 readers’ poll). Orrall and Co. released Poi Dog’s seventh studio album — simply titled 7 — last year. The Austin American-Statesman called the rock and soul collection “the best album Poi Dog Pondering has yet made.” A new, five-song EP is due later this year.