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Sofa Session: Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers play a Sofa Session for Jo, including music from their new album The Ultra Vivid Lament, which is out on 3rd September 2021.

Manic Street Preachers play a Sofa Session for Jo, including music from their new album The Ultra Vivid Lament, which is out on 3rd September 2021.

Manic Street Preachers return with their 14th studio album The Ultra Vivid Lament on 3rd September 2021 released on Columbia/Sony and have announced a tour for this autumn.

Describing the first track to be released from the album, Orwellian, the band said: 'The track is about the battle to claim meaning, the erasing of context within debate, the overriding sense of factional conflict driven by digital platforms leading to a perpetual state of culture war. As with many songs on the record, it was written on the piano by James Dean Bradfield. Musically, it echoes Abba, the majesty of Alan Rankine’s playing in the Associates and Talk Talk’s It’s My Life with a Lindsey Buckingham guitar solo. It felt like the perfect sonic and lyrical introduction to The Ultra Vivid Lament’.

The Ultra Vivid Lament is both reflection and reaction; a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky.

A departure from their last release (2018’s Resistance is Futile), The Ultra Vivid Lament is the first Manic Street Preachers album initially conceived on piano rather than guitar.

It was recorded over winter 2020/21 in Wales at Rockfield in Monmouth and the band's Door to the River studio in Newport with longtime collaborator Dave Eringa (The Who), before being mixed by David Wrench (Blossoms, Frank Ocean, Arlo Parks).

Manic Street Preachers are doing a UK tour in October and November.

1 hour, 30 minutes

Music Played

  • The Weeknd

    Save Your Tears

    • After Hours.
    • XO/Republic.
    • 11.
  • Villagers

    So Simpatico

    • Domino Records.
  • Newton Faulkner

    World Away

    • World Away (Single Edit).
    • Battenberg Recordings.
    • 1.
  • Pa Salieu

    Energy (feat. Mahalia)

    • Warner Records.
  • Strawberry Switchblade

    Since Yesterday

    • Strawberry Switchblade.
    • Warner Bros.
  • Manic Street Preachers

    Orwellian (Sofa Session, 20 July 2021)

  • Manic Street Preachers

    The Secret He Had Missed (Sofa Session, 20 July 2021)

  • Mike Post

    Theme From Hill Street Blues

  • Manic Street Preachers

    You Stole The Sun From My Heart (Sofa Session, 20 July 2021)

  • Rush

    The Spirit Of Radio

    • (Single).
    • Mercury.
    • 3.
  • Manic Street Preachers

    Summer Wind (Sofa Session, 20 July 2021)

  • Timezone

    World Destruction

    • Celluloid.
  • Simply Red

    For Your Babies

    • Stars.
    • EastWest Records.
    • 6.
  • Tyler, The Creator

    WUSYANAME

    • CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST.
    • Columbia.

Broadcast

  • Tue 20 Jul 2021 19:30