Sondre Lerche Sets New Album Acrobats, Shares Reflective Lead Single “Little Kids”

Sondre Lerche is back with a new album, and the timing comes with a familiar bit of seasonal lore attached to it. For years, the Norwegian singer-songwriter has sent Stereogum a holiday cover every Christmas, a small ritual that has helped keep him in the mix even between full-length releases. Last year’s take on Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile” arrived shortly before Turning Up The Heat Again, the surprise EP that marked his first new songs in five years and laid the groundwork for Acrobats, his follow-up to 2022’s Avatars Of Love.

Acrobats arrives as an eight-song album recorded across nine studios, with contributions from longtime Lerche collaborators and Norwegian jazz musicians. None of the tracks from Turning Up The Heat Again carry over, which makes the new record feel less like a cleanup job and more like a separate chapter. Its lead single, “Little Kids,” is out today: a soft-focus, memory-soaked song about young love, arranged with strings by Sean O’Hagan of The High Llamas and performed by the Stockholm Studio Orchestra. Norwegian filmmaker Lea Meyer directed the video, which moves in a slow, considered register that suits the song’s tone.

“From the first verse’s innocent rejection to the third verse’s plunge into premature adulthood, ‘Little Kids’ is about trying to avoid looking back in anger and instead look back with newfound empathy and perspective on adolescent attempts at stumbling towards love, friendship, and intimacy. It’s about forgiving who you were and who you were with and that feeling we get when we see photos of ourselves and realize we were so much younger than we thought at the time. It’s personal but highly universal.”

Lerche also said the video marks the first time he felt compelled to make something that directly visualized parts of the lyric. Rather than pushing against the song, he wanted the imagery to follow it and heighten it. He said he met Meyer at an event some time ago and immediately felt she understood the material. Drawing inspiration from the 1970 film A Swedish Love Story, the video introduces three couples at different ages and with different complications. Lerche called the finished result a testament to Meyer’s talent, and praised the work of her team, describing them as a dedicated and unusually strong group of young professionals. The song clearly matters to him, but so does the visual companion.

Later this year, Lerche will bring the new material to North America before continuing through Europe. The run places Acrobats in a broader live context that should be familiar to anyone who has followed his career across its more recent, quietly productive phases: not a reinvention, exactly, but another refined pass at melody, memory, and arrangement.

Below is the tracklist for Acrobats and Lerche’s tour schedule.

TRACKLIST:
01 “How Much Of This Was Planned”
02 “Little Kids”
03 “Drive Me Away From You”
04 “Love Is All”
05 “Follow The River”
06 “Acrobats”
07 “In The Time Before I Knew Her Well”
08 “Life-Changing Love”

TOUR DATES:
9/10 – Boston, MA @ Arts at The Armory
9/12 – Washington, DC @ Miracle Theatre
9/13 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
9/15 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
9/16 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Cedar
9/19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Sid The Cat Auditorium
9/20 – Ojai, CA @ Ojai Women’s Club
9/21 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
9/24 – Portland, OR @ Mission Theater
9/25 – Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
10/15 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
10/16 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
10/17 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
10/22 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
10/23 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
10/24 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret Scene
11/12 – Lisbon, Portugal @ Auditório da Reitoria da UNL
11/13 – Aveiro, Portugal @ Teatro Aveirense
11/14 – Arcos de Valdevez, Portugal @ Casa das Artes
11/20 – Vienna, Austria @ Blue Bird Festival
11/21 – Torino, Italy @ Spazio211
11/22 – Bologna, Italy @ Baumhaus
11/23 – Milano, Italy @ Arci Bellezza
11/27 – London, UK @ Lower Third
11/29 – Utrecht, Netherlands @ Vredenburg
11/30 – Breda, Netherlands @ Mezz
12/02 – Groningen, Netherlands @ Simplon