A tribute to the computer pioneer and victim of homosexual oppression, “A Man from the Future” blends electronic textures, orchestral arrangements, choirs, and spoken word to compose one of the most singular records in the Pet Shop Boys’ career.
Let’s be honest from the outset: for more than ten years, the Pet Shop Boys – after brightening our 1990s with their golden hits – had not excited us much, just good for compiling everything that can be compiled (hits, singles, B-sides…) or to stumble, with the support of famous producers like Stuart Price or James Ford, into bland and repetitive electro-pop. Before they reminded us of themselves with Nonetheless in 2024. To keep unsettling our certainties, arrives A Man from the Future, a new record centered on Alan Turing, the British mathematician regarded as the father of modern computing. But more importantly, a symbol of homosexual oppression, condemned in 1952 and who, faced with the choice between prison and a hormonal treatment intended to suppress his libido, chose the latter, hastening his downfall.
Originally, A Man from the Future was a BBC commission issued in 2014 around the biography , signed by Andrew Hodges. Performed only once, in July 2014 at the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the work has since stayed in the Pet Shop Boys’ drawers. Until the duo decided to take it up again and polish it with Sven Helbig. An German composer at the intersection of contemporary music, electronics, industrial rock and pop who has worked, among others, with Rammstein, Snoop Dogg or the Pet Shop Boys, for whom he arranged the music of the ballet The Most Incredible Thing in 2011.
A Great Pet Shop Boys Moment
In eight tracks, A Man from the Future blends machines, orchestral textures, children’s choirs and spoken word to unfold Turing’s life in as many chapters. From the discovery of his sexuality to his decisive role in decrypting Enigma, the cipher machine used by Nazi Germany during World War II, to his conviction for homosexuality and his suicide in 1954. Far from the danceable electro tunes the duo has accustomed us to, the album is a grand Pet Shop Boys work, where the duo’s melodic genius unfolds with almost operatic splendor, standing apart within the Pet Shop Boys discography, as much through its orchestral imprint as through its narrative form or its openly militant dimension, as Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe confirm: “Alan played a major role in defeating Germany during World War II and was a pioneer of computing, envisioning a world where computers could be intelligent. He also envisioned a future where homosexuality would be considered normal and accepted. In his professional life as in his private life, he was ahead of his time.”
A Man from the Future (Parlophone/Warner). Release on October 9.
