VNV Nation returns with a new single “Before the Rain” off the forthcoming album Electric Sun (via Metropolis Records) slated for release on April 14, 2023. The single release is the first in a series that coincides with a spring 2023 European Tour. You can find “Before the Rain” on all streaming services HERE.
Electric Sun is now available for PRE-ORDER in the following formats: CD Mediabook, Dbl Vinyl LP, and a Deluxe Limited Boxset..
Words on the new album from the VNV Nation website.
Making this album was a different affair from the usual. I’d been building a new studio from the end of 2019, which the “Lost Years” turned into a frustratingly slow process. I focused instead on everything close to home. Starting work on another album had to wait until the right time, when the feeling was there. VNV Nation and the label are a solo endeavour so I used the time to change a lot about the label and how I work, which was time well spent. I moved distributors for physical and digital and was incredibly lucky to meet some great new people to work with. But.. If you’ve been paying attention these last years to how I write, you will know that ideas for songs, melodies, designs and more always appear in my head when I’m doing anything and everything except thinking about writing music, coordinating and cleaning up a never-ending building site, cabling, discussing contracts or doing accounting are particularly productive. Whenever I had an idea, I’d make voice notes, record the screen on my phone while playing a synth app, add to a pile of paper scribbles or, if I was in the office, sketch out a very basic demo in some music software. Demos started to evolve in 2021, as well as the ideas for impossible orchestrations.
When I got around to sitting down and thinking of Electric Sun as a concept, I found myself living in a different world from the one I’d left in 2019. The album is the product of change and reflection, love, loss, toil, not-toil, learning and a pinch of soul-searching. I described it to my friend as the impressions left on me, these last years, left by what is right in front of everyone’s face but always seem to be missed. What’s truly important and how superficial everything had been were there in technicolor.
Electric Sun resonates deeply with me. There have been revelations and epiphanies in its making. There are sides to it where I’ve expressed things in ways I hadn’t until now. It’s allowed me to explore and reach new levels in the kind of music I make. I said on stage a few times that the next one would be darker. It was more a feeling than a conscious choice. Now, I don’t mean darker in an “alone in a concrete cellar at 2am on a Saturday” or my hunchback brother fell down a well and now I’m sad” kind of way. You don’t plan creativity but you can curate and guide it. You are a vessel for it and, if you’re like me, you let it do its thing. It’s not the tools themselves but what they enable you to do I find this album to be more emotive than usual, at times reaching some intensity. A lot was waiting to come out, I guess. I think you’ll understand what I mean once you’ve heard it. From the title track “Electric Sun” to songs like “Prophet”, “Run”, “Sunflare” and “At Horizon’s End”, there’s a cinematic-size scale to what I’ve made here. If you want, the album will make you dance, or ask you to think or make you smile and, at times, it might well put dust in your eye. I find it hard to grasp what I’ve achieved on this and I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Sincerely,
Ronan Harris
Photo by Michael Winkler
Electric Sun European Tour Dates … Ticket Information HERE
- 03 Mar 23 De München Muffathalle Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 04 Mar 23 De Leipzig Haus Leipzig Sold Out
- 05 Mar 23 De Saarbrücken Garage
- 07 Mar 23 Fr Paris La Maroquinerie
- 08 Mar 23 Fr Lille The Black Lab
- 10 Mar 23 De Bielefeld Lokschuppen
- 11 Mar 23 De Magdeburg Amo Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 12 Mar 23 De Bremen Modernes
- 14 Mar 23 Nl Amsterdam Melkweg
- 15 Mar 23 Be Sint-Niklaas De Casino
- 17 Mar 23 De Köln Palladium
- 18 Mar 23 De Berlin Columbiahalle Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 19 Mar 23 Pl Warsaw Progresja
- 21 Mar 23 Cz Prague Futurum
- 22 Mar 23 De Langen Neue Stadthalle
- 24 Mar 23 De Stuttgart Im Wizemann Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 25 Mar 23 De Dresden Alter Schlachthof Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 26 Mar 23 De Gotha Stadthalle Sold Out / Ausverkauft
- 28 Mar 23 A Graz Ppc
- 29 Mar 23 A Vienna Szene
- 31 Mar 23 De Oberhausen Turbinenhalle
- 01 Apr 23 De Hamburg Sporthalle
- 07 Apr 23 Ch Zürich Der Schwarze Ball
- 19 May 23 Es Barcelona Sala Apolo
- 20 May 23 Es Madrid Sala Mon
- 25 May 23 Uk Birmingham The Mill
- 26 May 23 Uk London Electric Ballroom
- 27 May 23 Uk Manchester Academy 2
- 28 May 23 Uk Glasgow Garage
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