The New Pornographers sign to Merge and announce new album Continue as a Guest
The New Pornographers are back with news of Continue as a Guest, their first album for Merge Records, and they've released the lead outing "Really Really Light" to accompany the announcement.
"Really Really Light" is the group's first new music since their 2019 album In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, and was co-written with Destroyer's Dan Bejar.
A.C. Newman explains, "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. 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 Lynne–era Tom Petty, a classic go-to."
Newman started work on Continue as a Guest at his Woodstock, New York home after the band's 2019 tour in support of In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, and spent a year writing and recording the 10-track album. It's produced by Newman, and features bandmates Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, John Collins, Todd Fancey and Joe Seiders, as well as contributions from saxophonist Zach Djanikian and a song co-written by Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz, Sad13).
Tracklist:
- Really Really Light
- Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies
- Cat and Mouse with the Light
- Last and Beautiful
- Continue as a Guest
- Bottle Episodes
- Marie and the Undersea
- Angelcover
- Firework in the Falling Snow
- Wish Automatic Suite
"Really Really Light" is out now. The New Pornographers' Continue as a Guest album will arrive via Merge Records on 31 March, and is available to pre-order now.
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