On March 19 two books by Chris Heath – Literally from 1990, and Pet Shop Boys versus America from 1993 – were reissued by the Penguin imprint Cornerstone, completely redesigned by Farrow design, and new introductions and afterwords written by the Pet Shop Boys and Chris Heath.
On April 21, Discovery, the film of the Pet Shop Boys 1994 South American tour – “the tour I enjoyed the most,” Chris notes – is released on DVD, accompanied by the release for the first time of a CD of their performance.
On May 7, a new Pet Shop Boys song, the ten-minute “Cricket wife”, is released on CD (accompanied by “West End girls (New lockdown version)”) with the periodical Annually 2021. “Cricket wife”, written during lockdown, began as an extended piece of music created by Chris. “My mum asked me if I would write a piece of classical music for her,” he explains. “I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got nothing else better to do.’ ‘Classical’ in inverted commas, obviously – I’m no classical composer. In the style of classical music.” When Neil received it, it struck him that it might fit a poem he had written some years before. “It’s really about my parents,” he says. “My father played cricket for many years.”
On December 26, the Pet Shop Boys host a three-hour radio show, Pet Shop Boys, Takeover, on BBC Radio 2 between 9pm and midnight, playing a selection of favourite songs; a broadcast also billed by Radio 2 as “Neil and Chris’s Unpredictable Party Playlist”. (The show has been pre-recorded on the afternoon of December 13.) The Pet Shop Boys have recorded five new jingles for the show, titled “Takeover”, “Strings”, “Beautiful”, “Boxing Day” and “Electric”, and introduce a joyously eclectic selection of music, including records by Matt Monro, Alcazar, Paul Weller (their recent remix of his song “Cosmic Fringes”), Gloria Ann Taylor, Eric Prydz, Françoise Hardy and The 1975. “We’ve only ever done radio when we can play records that we want,” says Chris. “I love doing radio. There’s something very satisfying about broadcasting to the nation.”
Neil and Chris finish work on ‘Paninaro ’95.’
They continue work on the song ‘After the Event.’
They fly to Berlin—very clearly one of their favorite cities. During their stay there of about six weeks, they work on (among other things) music for their upcoming ‘Alan Turing project.’
Following their second Coachella performance the night before, the Boys take the first of a couple days off relaxing in the Palm Springs region of southern California before heading east for the remaining U.S. dates of their Electric Tour. Meanwhile, a clue in today’s edition of the famed New York Times Crossword Puzzle: 82-Across, ‘Pet Shop Boys’ (answer: DUO).
2022: Neil attends the London premiere this evening of the film Firebird. Ukrainian actor Oleg Zagorodnii, who has a lead role, speaks to the audience via video link from Kyiv, his nation’s war-torn capital.
They’re at The Church Studios (a portion of a former Agapemonite church in London, built in 1850, converted into recording studios in 1984) recording orchestral parts for their next album. The day before, they supervised musicians recording brass parts. Today they’re recording strings, which Neil describes as ‘gorgeous.’