Last week, John Flansburgh called me from his car, parked down the road from what used to be Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York. In his rearview mirror was the site of the legendary 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. “Evidently it’s for sale,” he pointed out. 

Our conversation, however, was largely forward-facing. On April 14, alternative rock and experimental pop band They Might Be Giants will release their 24th studio album, The World is To Dig (Idlewild Records). Flansburgh and John Linnell co-founded the Grammy-winning group in Brooklyn, New York in 1982, and have since released nearly 1,000 tracks together, experimenting with a staggering array of musical genres, sounds, and arrangements.

“I think that’s the gimmick,” Flansburgh said. “[Finding] new ways of approaching how to put a song together.” For him and Linnell, the approach can be formal, or form-less, but always novel. That’s part of the ethos behind The World is to Dig, whose title was inspired by the 1952 children’s book A Hole is to Dig. 

As part of his childhood, Flansburgh finds the book “very poetic and beautiful.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with expressing a glimmer of hope in an album title,” he said. 

Flansburgh also uses the term “dig” in what he described as “a bohemian, beatnik way,” even going so far as to throw in the occasional “groovy.” In reference to the album, the term feels exploratory, even inviting.

This year marks a particularly big push for They Might Be Giants. They released a new EP, Eyeball, on January 15, and on April 17 they will embark on a U.S. tour across the Midwest and northeast, continuing into early June. Over the years, the duo has accrued a fanbase as diverse as their music. Their concerts attract die-hard fans of their work in the ‘80s and ‘90s, college radio show hosts, and elementary school devotees drawn in by their award-winning children’s albums. 

But none of this would be possible without Flansburgh and Linnell’s near-unstoppable work ethic in the studio, where they’re constantly creating. Some of the tracks on The World is to Dig were started before the release of their 2021 album, BOOK. 

“We’re kind of working all the time,” Flansburgh said of himself and Linnell. The duo will often create demos at home, taking individual approaches to songwriting and collaborating from there. “If an idea calls to us, we’ll bring it in sometimes with a very complete demo, sometimes with a very skeletal demo, and everything in between,” Flansburgh said. 

For a self-professed “home recording enthusiast” like Flansburgh, the independence afforded by modern recording equipment is a “dream come true.” Being able to work in private and bring that exact work into the studio allows him to “export some very fragile ideas in a very full-blown way.”

Early singles from The World is to Dig sound embodied, especially the superb arrangement on “Wu-Tang,” released February 10. In the chorus, Flansburgh and Linnell’s signature harmonies soar over a driving baseline and a neatly kept drumbeat, simultaneously jaunty and sonically expansive. 

“I feel like this is an important album for us,” Flansburgh said. Though the duo’s spirit of play when it comes to composing presents a limitless horizon, they keep their evolving fanbase in mind. 

“We’re doing stuff for ourselves, we’re doing stuff for our audience, or for anybody who’s curious,” Flansburgh said. For a band with such a high-caliber discography, “It’s important to respect your legacy, and work to your own standard. I just want to go down swinging,” Flansburgh said.

As they kick off The World is to Dig tour this week with a sold-out show in (of all places) Woodstock, New York, it seems the world does indeed dig They Might Be Giants. With plenty of road ahead, the duo seems sure to continue channeling the creative force that has sustained them for so many years. What form it might take is anyone’s guess. 

The World is to Dig releases April 14.