The limited-edition "Ballad Of The Last Payphone" single of 250 numbered copies is available only via AC Newman's substack.
Here's the scoop from New Pornographers HQ...
We pressed a limited edition 7" vinyl with two new full band songs – "Ballad Of The Last Payphone" b/w "Ego Death For Beginners" (both penned by AC Newman). It's available to purchase and is shipping now, exclusively on AC Newman’s Substack for Vinyl Club Member subscribers: acnewmanmusic.substack.com. Hand-numbered out of 250 copies worldwide!
“Ballad Of The Last Payphone” will be out on streaming services in a couple weeks, but we thought it would be fun to give everyone a chance to pick it up on vinyl to hear it that way for the first time. "Ego Death For Beginners” is exclusive to the 7” vinyl and won’t be on streaming services!
Artwork by Michael Arthur.
Note: For those only interested in New Pornographers full band recordings on which Neko Case sings, you'll be relieved to know that she's got a vocal credit on this single and Paul Rigby plays pedal steel. See below.
Check out the new tune "Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile" off In The Morse Code of Brake Lights along with some vintage clips.
Here's the scoop on In The Morse Code of Brake Lights...
“There are so many songs like 'the something of love' you know," explains New Pornographer's idea man Carl Newman who produced the new album. "there’s ‘The Book of Love,’ ‘The Freeway of Love’…Then I thought of ‘falling down the stairs of your love,’ and I thought, that kind of works.
“I think it has that element of how do you deal with the ideas of love and happiness in this world right now? When current events are stressful, that makes a stress on people’s relationships, and you’re trying to figure out how to be happy in this loving relationship in this world that seems ugly at every turn, which is not as easy as it seems. So I like the metaphor of love as something that you fall down.”
The band is set to tour North America this fall in support of In The Morse Code of Brake Lights, kicking it all off with a Toronto show as part of the Danforth Music Hall's centenary celebrations on Saturday (August 17). Tickets are available for purchase at thenewpornographers.com. The tour includes dates at Chicago’s lovely Vic Theatre, Washington, DC’s legendary 9:30 Club and New York’s Brooklyn Steel. See the complete list of upcoming dates below.
“I was about two-thirds of the way through the record when I began to notice that lyrically so much of it was pointing toward car songs,” continues Newman. “The opening track is ‘You’ll Need a Backseat Driver,’ and that was a metaphor that seemed to be running through other songs, too. Next to the love song, I feel like the car song is one of the most iconic kinds of songs in pop music, from Chuck Berry to the present. There was so much of that throughout it that I started thinking: ‘Oh, no, there’s too many references to cars on this record!’ And then I thought, ‘No, that’s good—people might think it’s a concept album.’”
The New Pornographers have released seven studio albums to date including their most recent, the Polaris long-listed Whiteout Conditions (sans longtime drummer Kurt Dahle singer/songwriter Dan Bejar) which was issued by Concord Music Group back in 2017. In the Morse Code Of Brake Lights is the first album released on their own imprint, Collected Works, in partnership with Concord Records available at https://found.ee/TNPStoreHome. Here's track listing followed by the tour itinerary after the audio clips for "The Surprise Knock" and "Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile."
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – In The Mose Code Of Brake Lights
1. You’ll Need A Backseat Driver 2. The Surprise Knock 3. Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile 4. Colossus Of Rhodes 5. Higher Beams 6. Dreamlike And On The Rush 7. You Won’t Need Those Where You’re Going 8. Need Some Giants 9. Opening Ceremony 10. One Kind Of Solomon 11. Leather On The Seat
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS on tour
August 17 Toronto, ON Danforth Music Hall
September 19 Woodstock, NY Levon Helm Studios
September 27 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
September 28 Urbana, IL Pygmalion Music Festival
September 29 Columbia, MO Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival
October 1 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
October 2 Chicago, IL Vic Theatre
October 3 Detroit, MI Majestic Theatre
November 4 Boston, MA Royale
November 5 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
November 7 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Steel
November 8 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
November 10 Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre
November 11 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
November 12 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
