Pet Shop Boys have joined forces with Alan Turing biographer Andrew Hodges to announce new album ‘A Man From The Future’, which is inspired by the pioneering British mathematician.
The album is set for release on October 9 via Parlophone Records, and structured as eight chapters – each of which explore a significant chapter in Turing’s life and legacy. Pre-order it here.
It will feature a combination of songs, spoken word and electronic and orchestral music, and unfold chronologically. At the start, Pet Shop Boys and Hodges dive into Turing’s school days, with his initial interest in mathematics and science and his realisation of his sexuality, and move though his time at Cambridge University, his leading role working for the British Government unlocking the German Enigma machine’s encrypted messages during World War II, and his place in the invention of the digital computer.
The album will also cover Turing’s prediction of Artificial Intelligence, as well as the latter years of his life, where he was put on trial and convicted for a homosexual relationship, and later died by suicide in 1954.
Music is written by Pet Shop Boys and includes a combination of electronics and strings, with string arrangements by Sven Helbig performed by the Manchester Camerata Octet.
Boys from Manchester Grammar School choir also sing on four tracks, and there is narration throughout the album, spoken by actress Juliet Stevenson and taken from Andrew Hodges’ book Alan Turing: the Enigma.
In the last track, there is audio of a speech made by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which he made in 2009 and acknowledged Turing’s ground-breaking work in helping the UK win the war, as well as apologising for the inhumane treatment he received when he was convicted under homophobic laws.
“Our motive in creating this work was to make a musical memorial to Alan Turing who gave so much to his country and the world and was rewarded for it by being prosecuted for his sexuality,” shared Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
“Alan made a massive contribution to the defeat of Germany in World War II and was a pioneer of computing, imagining a world with intelligent computers,” they added. “He also looked forward to a time when being gay would be accepted as normal. In both his professional and private lives, he was ahead of his time.”
The ‘A Man From The Future’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know’
2. ‘He Dreamed Of Machines’
3. ‘The Enigma’
4. ‘Other Ranks’
5. ‘The Memory And The Control’
6. ‘The Trial’
7. ‘Only In His Death’
8. ‘A Man From The Future’
The duo originally wrote the work with Andrew Hodges in 2012, and performed it with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Proms in 2014. Revisiting it now, they have introduced more electronic elements, reworked the orchestral elements, and updated parts of the spoken text.
As well as being released on October 9, BBC Radio 6 Music will broadcast the new album on Sunday October 4 and also air an interview with Pet Shop Boys where they open up about the creative process behind the reworking.
There will be another broadcast of the album on BBC Radio 3 later that evening, and both Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Hodges will then take part in a listening and conversation event for ‘A Man From The Future’ on Thursday October 8 at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.
The latter will feature a full playback of the album followed by a discussion about the work by Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Hodges. Tickets for the event go on sale on Monday (September 7) at 10am BST here.
The announcement of the new album comes as Pet Shop Boys embarked on a run of ‘Obscure’ live shows earlier this year which saw them play a five-night residency in London and play exclusively deep cuts and rarities.
The shows saw Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant break out the first ever live performances of 1986’s ‘Jack The Lad’, 2012’s ‘After The Event’, 1996’s ‘Hit And Miss’, 2002’s ‘Always’, 2020’s ‘New Boy’, 2009’s ‘King Of Rome’, 2024’s ‘Love Is The Law’, 2006’s ‘The Performance Of My Life’, and more, as well as bring out Johnny Marr as a surprise guest.
Pet Shop Boys released their 15th and latest studio album, ‘Nonetheless’, in April 2024 and it was given a four-star review from NME, which hailed it as “the sublime sound of pop’s standard-bearers continuing to hone their craft”.
The band’s Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe then spoke to NME about how the LP was their “queer album” and went on to release a remix album, ‘Disco 5’, featuring Noel Gallagher, Sleaford Mods, Paul Weller and Primal Scream.
