Welsh rock icons Manic Street Preachers have enlisted the vocal talents of compatriot Gwenno for a fresh take on their classic track Spectators of Suicide. The new rendition of the track – recorded to mark the 30th anniversary of the Heavenly record label – premiered on the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC Radio 6 music this weekend, and is available to listen to now via BBC Sounds.
The new adaptation of Spectators of Suicide will be the third interpretation of the song released by the Blackwood band. The original Heavenly Recordings version of the track was released as a B-side on their seminal 1991 single You Love Us (as well as the 2003 rarities compilation Lipstick Traces – A Secret History of Manic Street Preachers). A more ethereal, slowed-down version of the track then became a much-loved album track on the band’s masterful 1992 debut LP Generation Terrorists released on Columbia Records. The new rendition maintains the towering sonic feel of the Columbia version, blended with the faster tempo of the Heavenly original.
Massive thanks to @BBCRadMac for feat my @heavenlyrecs book on today’s + @Manics & @gwennosaunders exclusive new recording of Spectators of Suicide (listen from 1hr 45 mins in). Pictured here: Nicky’s handwritten lyrics for 2008’s Forever Heavenly gigs. https://t.co/lLi54Opkra pic.twitter.com/OnU05Bnu6b
— Robin Turner (@robinturner) November 7, 2020
Manics frontman James Dean Bradfield, Gwenno and Beth Orton are among those who have contributed to Robin Turner’s new book on the history of the Heavenly label, Believe In Magic: Heavenly Recordings, The First Thirty Years. The book, which is published tomorrow, promises to “capture the presiding personality of the label, its bands and the people associated with its story.”
Speaking ahead of the new release of the new book and the 30th anniversary, Manics’ bassist and wordsmith Nicky Wire said of Heavenly: “I feel very grateful and properly proud to have played a small part in this incredible story. MAGIC-FAITH-AESTHETICS. That to me is what Heavenly stands for.” Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh is also quoted on the label’s website saying “Heavenly is more than a record label, it’s the absolute nectar of all that’s brilliant in the culture of these islands. I love the shit out of them and everything they stand for.”
2021 looks set to be a big Manic Street Preachers year, with two epic sold-out shows in Cardiff in support of the NHS (re-scheduled from December due to Covid-19 restrictions) and a highly-anticipated (as-yet-unnamed) new album. James Dean Bradfield told Radio X that the locked-down months of 2020 had enabled the band to get stuck into song-writing, but was clear that the new material would not reference the ongoing pandemic. He said “We’re trying to make sure that we’re not writing about the situation too much. It would feel like it was adding insult to injury.”
2020 saw James Dean Bradfield release an acclaimed album of his own – the Victor Jara-inspired Even In Exile – his second solo outing, coming fourteen years after the underrated gem The Great Western. Nicky Wire has also been at work on solo material. Bradfield, who will play guitar on the upcoming Wire solo effort (Wire’s first since 2006’s I Killed The Zeitgest), told the NME that his bandmate’s new recordings are “sounding great.” He said of their sessions in the studio: “There was one song on there that was fucking amazing but hard to describe. It was very modern, very electronic, and very soothsaying and prophetic.”
The Manics’ Spectators of Suicide collaborator Gwenno (aka Gwenno Saunders), who has released albums in the Welsh and Cornish languages via Heavenly, has also been busy at work in 2020. Most recently she teamed up with Paul Weller on a remix of his track Old Father Tyme and produced a new theme tune for the popular The Cinematologists podcast. The Guardian described it as “an instrumental theme for a podcast that’s better than most other artists’ entire back catalogues.”
