Pet Shop Boys have made a record about Alan Turing. A Man From the Future, out today, is described as an audio and musical biography of the computer pioneer and codebreaker, according to the reissue and release site SuperDeluxeEdition.
The duo wrote it with Professor Andrew Hodges, Turing’s biographer. It comes on CD, vinyl and Blu-ray, and the site says an exclusive Blu-ray edition can be ordered through its own shop.
A busy release Friday
The Turing project is one of several notable titles in this week’s list. Teenage Fanclub, the Scottish band, put out their 13th album, Do Not Dare To Dream. According to SuperDeluxeEdition, it follows 2023’s Nothing Lasts Forever.
I could not confirm further details about either record, such as track listings or critical response, from the source I read, so none are given here.
Catalogue and archive
Older material has its own share of the week. Genesis’s 1969 debut, From Genesis to Revelation, is reissued as a four-CD and Blu-ray box set.
Foreigner’s 1979 album Head Games arrives as a three-CD and Blu-ray super deluxe edition.
Paul Simon’s The Quiet Celebration Concert offers his first live performance of the whole of Seven Psalms, his 2023 album. That is on the first disc of a two-CD set. The second disc collects hits and deeper cuts, and a three-LP vinyl version is also available.
Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings have a career-spanning ten-CD set, The Ultimate Collection. A further release, NOW Yearbook 1971 – Extra, is a three-CD compilation of music from that year.
Why the Turing record stands out
Albums built around a single historical figure are not new, but a pop act pairing with a biographer is a specific choice. Turing, a mathematician who worked on codebreaking and early computing, is a figure whose story has been told in books and on screen. Here it is told through songs, with Hodges’s involvement signalling an effort at factual grounding.
How the project works musically, and whether it is a conventional album or something closer to a stage piece, is not clear from the listing. Buyers will have to judge once they hear it.
The week also shows how much of the physical music market now leans on box sets and deluxe editions. Four of the six titles highlighted by SuperDeluxeEdition are reissues or archive releases, in formats that pair discs with Blu-ray audio or video.