Today, Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers have released their highly anticipated tenth studio album, The Former Site Of. The album’s release also came with the title track being shared as a single. The visualizer for the six-minute long title track can be found on the group’s YouTube channel.
The track begins with an electronic loop and some spaced out lyrics. The track maintains a mellow atmosphere as guitar and other instrumentation slowly join in, but the song generally maintains a stripped back feeling and lets the vocals remain the driving force behind the track for most of it’s runtime. Near the halfway point, percussion comes in to provide some more energy followed by horns to bring the song some swelling dramatic energy. The visualizer features a man standing atop the rooftop of a church, which appears to be heavily flooded by waters he is only narrowly avoiding.
The New Pornographers frontman A.C. Newman spoke on the inspiration behind the album’s title and iconography, saying, “The Former Site Of is a reference to various road signs that I’ve seen in upstate New York. There is a sign near the Ashokan Reservoir that reads “the former site of West Hurley”. That intrigued me. What happened to the town of West Hurley? Around 100 years ago, a number of small NY state towns were forced to leave, sell their land, so that their towns could be flooded and become reservoirs, a source of water for New York City. I was fascinated by the history, the towns that were almost wiped from history. It felt like a good starting place for an album. We all have parts of our lives that are gone.”
“The Former Site Of” is the tenth and final track off the album of the same name, which releases today. The New Pornographers are also set to begin touring starting on April 22nd, with shows across the year up until October.
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