Welsh rock giants Manic Street Preachers are to be remixed by none other than acclaimed indie act British Sea Power.
Manic Street Preachers recently completed work on their new album ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’. After more than a decade of searching, the family of missing guitar player Richey Edwards had the musician legally declared dead, which seems to have caused a period of looking back within the band.
The Manics had long spoken of using Edwards’ remaining notebooks in some way, and the group announced that they would record them with legendary producer Steve Albini at the helm. Recorded in their native Wales the album recalls the band’s iconic 1994 album ‘The Holy Bible’ – the last they completed with Edwards.
The album is keenly anticipated by fans, with few tracks from ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ having been leaked. Someone who has heard at least one of the tracks is British Sea Power’s Martin Noble, who has been entrusted to remix one of the songs.
Speaking to NME the musician said “I’ve just finished remixing a song called ‘Me And Stephen Hawking’ which is quite serious and silly at the same time”.
Adding that he was unsure what format the song would be released on, Noble added that “remixing the Manics has been quite interesting, because it’s a whole album using Richey’s lyrics. It’s got an odd mix of quite of weird, stupid imagery but it’s also very poignant. I’ve been very impressed with that.”
British Sea Power themselves are set to release their soundtrack to the cult film oddity ‘Man Of Aran’. A lush, wide-screen work the album is much more than a throwaway and will be promoted by some very special shows.
Manic Street Preachers are due to release ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ on May 18th.