Irvine Welsh has announced his debut album, a disco record to accompany Trainspotting‘s sequel novel.
The novelist will drop ‘Men In Love’ on July 24, the same day as his forthcoming sequel to Trainspotting. Welsh wrote the lyrics and created the album in collaboration with the Sci-Fi Soul orchestra, who produced and composed the music – which is described as “classic Motown and disco influences with contemporary electronic dance production”.
Speaking about the record, Welsh said: “In uncertain times, dominated by the ascendancy of soul dead oligarchs, their corrosive technology and looting economics, the great positive constant for humanity remains our infinite capacity for love.”
He further said that music “is still the medium by which we bypass their reductive, low frequency world”, adding that “one of the greatest musical forms in delivering that ecstasy has been discotheque music”.
“No matter how confused our men (and women) have been in the quest for love, as we are forced to earn a living to pay for our fun, our real predilections are to party like it’s 2099. So don’t diss the disco, let’s dance away the heartache or die trying, because nothing else makes any sense”
Welsh has released the first single off the record, ‘A Man In Love With Love’, which you can listen to below.
Welsh announced the sequel to his 1993 debut novel Trainspotting in December last year. While there have been other spin-off novels from the Trainspotting universe including Porno and Skagboys, this novel will take place immediately after the events in Trainspotting.
It follows main characters Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie as they try to leave heroin behind and pursue love instead. Welsh told The Guardian that he was “really, really excited about bringing these characters back”.
The novel will open in the late 80s, “at the end of punk and just before acid house, it was that quite fallow time of Thatcherism.”
Welsh added: “I know for myself at the time, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve had my fun with punk and with drugs and all that, and I just want to kind of settle down to a nice life. Then acid house came along and completely turned that on its head.”
In other news, Kneecap spoke to NME about the influence of Trainspotting on their film biopic, and what it was like to receive praise from Welsh for that.
