PET SHOP BOYS - A MAN FROM THE FUTURE 2CD

With “A Man From The Future”, the Pet Shop Boys dedicate themselves to the life and work of Alan Turing – the British mathematician, cryptanalyst and computer pioneer who made a decisive contribution to the deciphering of the German Enigma during the Second World War and laid the foundations of modern computer science. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe created the work together with Turing biographer Professor Andrew Hodges. In eight chapters, it combines songs, spoken word, electronics and chamber music into a musical audio biography: from Turing’s school days to Cambridge, Bletchley Park and his vision of artificial intelligence to his conviction for homosexuality and his death in 1954.

The piece was premiered in 2014 at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. For this studio recording, the lyrics and music were fundamentally revised. Produced by the Pet Shop Boys and Sven Helbig, who also wrote the string and vocal arrangements, the album was created in Great Britain and Germany. The Manchester Camerata Octet, the Manchester Grammar School choir and actress Juliet Stevenson can be heard as narrator. Maarten Vos contributed additional production, programming and synthesizers, the album was mixed by Olsen Involtini, mastered by Zino Mikorey.

The Blu-ray Audio contains the work in an immersive Dolby Atmos mix as well as in high-resolution stereo with 24bit/96kHz – and in three versions: the complete version with vocals and narration, an instrumental version and a version with vocals but without narration included exclusively on the Blu-ray. Especially the interplay of analogue-like synthesizers, string octet, choir, Neil Tennant’s voice and Juliet Stevenson’s narration unfolds a special depth in the Dolby Atmos surround sound.

Tracklist:

Natural wonders every child should know

He dreamed of machines

The Enigma

Other ranks

The memory and the control

The trial

Only in his death

A man from the future