❉ Ange Chan looks towards the duo’s new album, The Neon, and reviews the lead single.
Erasure are back with a new single Hey Now (Think I’ve Got a Feeling) and a new album, The Neon. The 10-track album is out on Mute on 21 August 2020, and available as pre-order exclusives on limited edition neon orange vinyl, limited edition neon green cassette and CD in a fold out orange foil blocked sleeve with fold out lyric and photography booklet, as well as on black vinyl, to download and stream.
The lead single from the album is a bouncy, feel good affair, that will get you up dancing or at least singing along to and is a great precursor to what to expect from the album.
Written and produced by Erasure, the album’s initial sessions saw Vince and Andy reunite to work on the follow up to 2017’s World Be Gone with a fresh optimism and energy. This is, in part, born from their own recent personal projects; the continuation of the on-going Torsten project for Andy Bell, and DJing his own radio show for Vince.
Vince goes on to explain, “Our music is always a reflection of how we’re feeling. He was in a good place spiritually, and so was I – really good places in our minds. You can hear that.”
The Neon is a place that lives in the imagination, that we – you and me – put in the real world. It could be a night club, a shop, a city, a cafe, a country, a bedroom, a restaurant, any place at all. It’s a place of possibility in warm, glowing light and this is music that takes you there.
Taking inspiration from pop music through the decades, from bands Andy loved as a child through to the present day, he explains, “It was about refreshing my love – hopefully our love – of great pop. I want kids now to hear these songs! I wanted to recharge that feeling that pop can come from anyone.”
The album’s vocals were recorded in Atlanta, Georgia, with Vince joining Andy at the studio sessions, and the mixing was done by the band in London earlier this year. Photographs were shot at that time in the unique environs of Gods Own Junkyard, a gallery housing a huge collection of vintage neon. Andy enthuses, “I felt like it was being inside a virtual reality game. I loved that it felt like being in a different world. That’s what I want our new album to convey.”
The Neon offers us warmth and a brilliant brightness in our times. It connects us to our pasts and our futures as it glistens with hope. It creates beautiful places where our imaginations can roam, bringing us together, twinkling and beaming. The Neon puts you and me in a celebratory world, now and forever, illuminated and alive.
Tracklisting
Hey Now (Think I Got a Feeling)
Nerves of Steel
Fallen Angel
No Point in Tripping
Shot A Satellite
Tower of Love
Diamond Lies
New Horizons
Careful What I Try to Do
Kid You’re Not Alone
❉ Pre-orders via the band’s shop will include priority access to future tour dates mute.ffm.to/TheNeon
❉ Ange Chan is a regular writer for We Are Cult and has published six volumes of poetry and two novels of contemporary fiction. She is currently also working on a long-standing project of her third novel Champagne Flutes and Pixie Boots.