The New Pornographers return with The Former Site Of
The New Pornographers have announced a new album, The Former Site Of, due out March 27 via Merge Records. The record marks the band’s tenth studio album and follows 2023’s Continue as a Guest, further extending a two-decade run defined by tightly engineered pop songs and a rotating chorus of singular voices.
Alongside the announcement, the band have shared a new track, “Votive,” which arrives with an animated video by Michael Arthur. Built around A.C. Newman’s mandolin, the song opens in a haze of synths and keyboards before stretching outward into something looser and more expansive, anchored by a recurring refrain from Newman and Kathryn Calder: “I didn’t see you there.” The video draws directly from the song’s imagery, translating its half-glimpsed figures and missed connections into shifting, impressionistic visuals. The Former Site Of also includes the previously released single “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” which appeared on our Best Songs of The Week list last April. As we put it last year, ““‘Ballad Of The Last Payphone’ hits a different kind of nerve. Less giddy power-pop, more slow-burn meditation, the track leans into melancholy with acoustic strums, ghostly pedal steel, and vocals that swirl like a memory you can’t quite shake.”
According to a press release, The Former Site Of collects ten short stories about people pushed to personal and societal extremes, each rendered as a meticulously constructed pop song. Newman initially developed the material in his home studio before bringing it to the full band—A.C. Newman, Kathryn Calder, Neko Case, John Collins, and Todd Fancey—a process he says allowed him to arrive with a clearer sense of each song’s emotional core before opening it up to collaboration. The album also marks the group’s first time recording with session drummer Charley Drayton, whose résumé includes work with Divinyls, The Rolling Stones, and Fiona Apple. For the upcoming tour, Josh Wells will join as the band’s touring drummer.
The New Pornographers will support the album with a U.S. tour beginning April 22 in Boston, with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and more. Tickets are on sale now, with support from Will Sheff of Okkervil River at all dates.