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Future Islands on their 'deeply personal' 7th studio album

XPN | By Stephen Kallao,
Kimberly Junod
Published March 6, 2024 at 12:35 PM EST
Future Islands
Frank Hamilton
/
Courtesy of the artist
Future Islands

Future Islands' latest album, People Who Aren't There Anymore, is filled with their signature indie pop sound, but it's also deeply personal.

Initially conceived of by lead singer Samuel T. Herring during the pandemic, the songs on the new album began as longings for his former partner. But in the aftermath of their breakup, the meaning of the album shifted.

In this session, Herring and keyboardist Gerrit Welmers join us to talk about making the record, which involved salvaging old keyboards and the almost unheard-of proposition of having two people mix the record.

Plus, we'll look back on the 10-year anniversary of their breakout performance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Many thanks to our friends at WFUV for their help recording the live performances in this session:

  • Audio: Jim O'Hara, Allen Wang and Lauryn Williams
  • Video: Lilja Cormack, Nikki Estelami, Adithi Vimalanathan, Therese Burgo, Ava Anselmo and Olivia Iannaccone


This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Copyright 2024 XPN
Stephen Kallao
Kimberly Junod
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).