Pulp have been a touring prospect for quite a while, but have been leaning on their classic material to please the punters – that’s all about to change with a new album called More arriving on 6 June through Rough Trade.
They’ve shared synthy wonder “Spike Island” as the lead single, and the press release reveals that lyrically the idea for ‘Spike Island’ came from Jason Buckle (Relaxed Muscle) who co-wrote the song and went to Stone Roses’ infamous Spike Island gig. A DJ there shouted, “Spike Island, come alive!” all day, getting on everybody’s nerves. That stuck in Jarvis Cocker’s mind, inspiring him to write a second song about Spike Island despite not going to the gig.
Cocker has also penned a minor essay about the video:
“I was told that someone was interested in investigating A.I. & did I have any ideas?
“The first idea I had was to animate the photographs that Rankin & Donald took for Different Class: after all, back in 1995 they had been an “artificial” way of dropping us into real-life situations & getting an album cover done whilst we were too busy recording the music for that album to pose for pictures. No brainer.
“It was my initial idea to produce a kind of “making of” video that showed how the photos had come to be taken – but as soon as I fed the first shot into the A.I. app I realised that wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to “go with the flow” & see where the computer led me.
“All the moving images featured in the video are the result of me feeding in a still image & then typing in a “prompt” such as: “The black & white figure remains still whilst the bus in the background drives off” which led to the sequence where the coach weirdly slides towards the cut-out of me.
“The weekend I began work on the video was a strange time: I went out of the house & kept expecting weird transformations of the surrounding environment due to the images the computer had been generating. The experience had marked me. I don’t know whether I’ve recovered yet…..
“I have to thank Julian House for some expert post-production work & Rankin & Donald Milne for allowing me to use their work in this way. As it says in text at the end of the video, I think what they did for Pulp back in 1995 was “Human Intelligence at its best”.
“My final thought? H.I. Forever!”
There’s not really any point adding to that, so enjoy the video for “Spike Island” below or find the song on streamers.
Pulp’s new album More will be out on June 6 via Rough Trade (pre-order/save). You can find Pulp on Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Twitter.
Full UK & Irish tour dates are as follows:
June 7th – Glasgow, OVO Hydro
June 10th – Dublin, 3Arena
June 13th – London, The O2
June 14th – London, The O2
June 19th – Birmingham, Utilita Arena
June 21st – Manchester, Co-op Live
July 25th – Sheffield, Tramlines Festival
