Scuzzed-out New York post-punkers Pop. 1280 were a Stereogum Band To Watch back in 2010, and they haven’t let up since. The band released Way Station, their last album, late in 2019. When they started playing live shows behind the album, they were already working on their next LP. Today, Pop. 1280 have announced that this next album, called Museum On The Horizon, is coming out this fall.

Pop. 1280 are now a trio after the departure of their keyboardist and drummer, and they recorded Museum On The Horizon in Brooklyn, with past Parquet Courts producer Jonathan Schenke. On lead single “Noncompliant,” you can hear the band leaning even harder into sputtering, spartan industrial-punk sounds. Check it out below.

In a press release, Pop. 1280 say:

Without getting too specific, “Noncompliant” is about how helping never helps and oftentimes the systems that we use to support people are also the systems that control them. Support in our society is contingent on people behaving a certain way, but people in need deserve to be able to live their lives as they see fit and still have a right to the things they need to survive. We limit how much we help people because we love the illusion that society is a meritocracy and if you are in need you must have done something wrong to end up there…

Museum on the Horizon partially came about the way it did because our last album was more minimal and ambient. That LP was written in the studio and was difficult to play live. We wrote Museum on the Horizon in our practice space and got to road test about half of it before the pandemic. Ironically, even after the pandemic the desire to play live and connect with other people influenced the sound of this record. We were drawn to structured, drum machine driven songs because we were imagining playing live and wanted something to hope for.

M.O.T.H. continues our interest in electronic music but moves from more soundscapes and tones to grooves and beats. Part of this was the pandemic and wanting to have something exciting and hopeful and part of it was we had more time to understand our machines and get the most out of them.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Museum On The Horizon”
02 “Noncompliant”
03 “Not Too Deep”
04 “Two-Body Problem”
05 “Brennschluss”
06 “Mission Creep”
07 “Threads”
09 “Right Hand Man”
10 “Force Majeure”

Museum On The Horizon is out 9/24 on Profound Lore.