The album's genesis took them back to when they were putting the finishing touches on their third LP, Paradise (Sacred Bones, 2016)

Returning to New York, hungry to write new songs, the band decided to rethink their musical model. Their weekly band practice nights became sampling sessions, the exploration of new and disorienting sounds that they could adapt to their new confinement. The simplicity of the duo led to an aesthetic of minimalism, and they could figure out how to perform the songs live later. Now was about expunging their systems of the creative virus.

The door began to creak open when Matthew Hord (Running, Chicago) moved to New York last year and the band discovered he knew more about analog synth hardware than anyone they'’d worked with before in Pop.1280.

Lyrically, POP.1280 plumbed the deepest depths of their inner selves and also allowed themselves to translate those painful and fearful themes to new extremes of purpose