There’s a new Bunnymen album slated for the end of 2013, says singer Ian McCulloch.
He and long-time sparring partner Will Sergeant are heading back into the studio in the summer to record the band’s twelfth album, their first since 2009’s The Fountain.
“I’m just trying to get a start before I get together with Will," the singer says. “It’s worked the same way for a long time – since the split, and with Pete [De Freitas, original drummer] and Les [Pattinson, original bassist] not being around. All those days of rehearsal rooms used to get on my nerves – three hours of headache, earache, until I realised it was much better just to be in Yates Wine Lodge for three hours while they made a racket.”
McCulloch’s calling the new record The Garden of Meedin’, and it sees the band revisit the choppy, angular post-punk leanings of their first phase. “It’s more like the early stuff with loads of spiky guitars and space. But as much as this is reminiscent of the past, it feels dead new to me. There’s loads of space on there and it just unwinds during the course. I like that about us, things like [1981 single] ‘Over The Wall’ – it sounds like a journey. A lot of that was down to Will.”
“It sounds fantastic. It’s just a different kind of ambition. The idea is to make the greatest album we’ve ever made. I always go into things thinking that anyway. I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to see where I could go with my voice and if I could write some bridges. Then I looked back and realised we never had any bridges.”
McCulloch’s set himself something of a challenge, having only just declared their landmark 1984 album Ocean Rain as "[the] greatest album ever made" in his Baker’s Dozen yesterday – have a read of his 12 other choices here.
