The marvellous Fire Records have announced that they will be releasing the new album, Shut Down The Streets, from the New Pornographers’ founder A.C. Newman in Europe on 22 October.

A year of joy and sorrow in the Newman household has inspired an album of understated elegance and strength, representing a change in tone from the past and an even bigger change in subject matter.

The album begins with I’m Not Talking (also the first single which you can download below) – a delicately blissful song about being “in a strange in-between space where the things I had always strived for – perfect happiness, success, being the best at what I do – were suddenly not nearly as important as just holding onto what I had,” as he puts it, and ends with the saddest, most direct and heartbreaking song he’s ever written.

a

Follow @madmackerel