Descrizione
What a surprise: Duran Duran are releasing a new album in 2021. “Future Past” is the Brits’ 15th studio album, the follow-up to 2015’s “Paper Gods” and their first new work in around six years.
They wrote twelve songs for it, in which vocalist Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor once again prove themselves to be timeless artists, fusing art, technology, fashion and style with their signature sound.
Duran Duran have been recording the album primarily at London’s Assault & Battery Studio 1 since November 2018. The two-and-a-half year production period was affected by the Corona pandemic, which meant studio facilities were unavailable for an extended period.
“When we first went into the studio at the end of 2018, I tried to convince the guys that we only needed to write two or three tracks for an EP,” says vocalist Simon Le Bon. “Four days later, with the core of 25+ strong songs in the bag, all of which deserved development, I realised we’d be in it for the long haul, but that was before Covid.”
And so Duran Duran didn’t finish “Future Past” until early 2021. Mark Ronson, Erol Alkan and Giorgio Moroder were hired as co-producers. The collaboration has already been described by bassist John Taylor as essential to the creativity of “Future Past”: “Recording sessions are quite exhausting […] We can finish each other’s sentences and I think to a certain extent we can do that musically. We work with the same cast; it’s like a soap opera. That’s why fellow performers are important, because you have to keep the spirit alive.”
There are a few guests on the record as well for that reason: pianist Mike Garson from David Bowie’s band, singer Lykke Li and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon.
The latter is featured on the very first single, “Invisible”. Frontman Simon Le Bon said of the songwriting, “It kind of started with the beat. There’s a very, very assertive drum track, it’s really all about the rhythm. I just had to build a melody around it.” Keyboardist Nick Rhodes described the song as follows: “Acoustic architecture has always been incredibly important to Duran Duran. I think with ‘Invinsible’ we really managed to carve the sculpture the way we wanted it. Sonically, it’s a very unusual piece of music. I think when you put all the instruments together, it creates an overall sound that you might not have heard before.”
If you want to get your own impression of the current Duran Duran sound, you can pre-order “Future Past” now as a standard CD, as a limited deluxe edition on CD with three bonus tracks as well as an LP on Solid White Vinyl and limited Transparent Red Vinyl.
