THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM ON MARCH 31 ON MERGE RECORDS
OUT NOW, NEW SINGLE “REALLY REALLY LIGHT”
Continue as a Guest, the new album from The New Pornographers, is set for release on March 31 via Merge Recordsβtheir first for the label. The first single, “Really Really Light”, is out with an accompanying video directed by Christian Cerezo.
A co-write with Dan Bejar (Destroyer), “Really Really Light” is a refashioning of a cutting-room-floor track from the band’s acclaimed 2014 album Brill Bruisers. “Part of my process throughout the years has been messing with things I never finished. I really liked Dan’s chorus, and for a while I was just trying to write something that I felt like belonged with it,” A.C. Newman shares. “I was thinking of the Aloe Blacc song ‘The Man’ which interpolated the chorus from Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ and thought it would be fun to interpolate a song that no one knows. Not trying to sound like Aloe Blacc, just doing some interpolating of my own. It became a game of writing a verse that felt like a part of the same song. In my mind, I was striving for a little Jeff Lynneβera Tom Petty, a classic go-to.”
Newman began work on Continue as a Guest at his Woodstock, New York home over the course of a year, after the band had just finished touring behind 2019’s In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights. During the writing and recording process, he discovered new lyrical, artistic and sonic approaches experimenting with his own vocal register.
The 10-track record is produced by Newman and features compatriots Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, John Collins, Todd Fancey, and Joe Seiders as well as contributions from saxophonist Zach Djanikian and in addition to the Bejar co-write, glimmering track “Firework in the Falling Snow” was co-penned by Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz, Sad13).
The album tackles themes of isolation and collapse, following the ambivalence of day-to-day life during the pandemic and the endless pitfalls of living online. But Newman says that Continue as a Guest’s title track also addresses the continually rolling concerns that come with being in a band for so long. “The idea of continuing as a guest felt very apropos to the times,” he explains. “Feeling out of place in culture, in societyβnot feeling like a part of any zeitgeist, but happy to be separate and living your simple life, your long fade-out. Find your own little nowhere, find some space to fall apart, continue as a guest.”
Tour Dates
April 19βAsheville, NCβSalvage Station*
April 20βAtlanta, GAβVariety Playhouse*
April 21βNew Orleans, LAβTipitina’s*
April 22βHouston, TXβWhite Oak Music Hall*
April 23βDallas, TXβStudio at The Factory*
April 25βAustin, TXβParamount*
April 26βOklahoma City, OKβTower Theatre*
April 27βSt. Louis, MOβSheldon Concert Hall*
April 28βOmaha, NEβThe Waiting Room*
April 29βKansas City, MOβThe Truman*
April 30βDenver, COβGothic Theatre*
May 3βSt. Paul, MNβThe Fitzgerald*
May 4βMilwaukee, WIβTurner Hall*
May 5βChicago, ILβThalia Hall*
May 6βChicago, ILβ Thalia Hall*
May 8βCincinnati, OHβMemorial Hall*
May 9βColumbus, OHβNewport Music Hall*
May 11βDetroit, MIβEl Club*
May 12βToronto, ONβDanforth*
May 13βBurlington, VTβHigher Ground Ballroom*
May 14βNorwalk, CTβ Wall Street Theater*
May 15βBoston, MAβRoyale*
May 17βNew York, NYβBrooklyn Steel*
May 18βPhiladelphia, PAβUnion Transfer*
May 19βWashington, DCβ9:30 Club*
May 21βSaxapahaw, NCβHaw River Ballroom*
*with Wild Pink