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Artist News Releases
James Dean Bradfield announces new album based on the life of Victor Jara
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 3 July 2020
Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield has announced a new solo album, ‘Even In Exile’. The record features lyrics telling the story of Chilean performer and activist Victor Jara, penned by playwright Patrick Jones, who is the brother of MSP bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire.
Jara was influential in Chilean creative arts, starting out as a theatre director and later becoming a singer-songwriter. It was as a musician that he became particularly politically active, heavily supporting Salvador Allende in his successful bid to become Chilean president in 1970. When Augusto Pinochet led a US-backed coup d’état in 1973, Jara was arrested, tortured and murdered.
“Sometime at the start of 2019, Patrick gave me a handful of poems each of which touched on different aspects of Victor Jara’s life”, explains Bradfield of how this story became the subject of his new album. “When I read them, I was struck by the idea that if a life means anything, it will continue after death. That thought stuck with me and made me want to turn Patrick’s words into a record”.
“One of the reasons Victor’s story chimed deeply – then and now – [is] because, as with so many other politically active people’s stories from that era, it results in death”, he goes on. “The idea now that freedom of political thought might end in death is still too shocking to contemplate, yet we live in an age where oppositional politics leads to untold bitterness and a total lack of empathy, compromise or respect. It is so destructive, I think this period of history points to so much that’s relevant right now”.
“I started each track with just guitar and vocal and built it up from there, this is an album that wasn’t jammed – it was quite a precise procedure of finding the right architecture for the lyrics”, he adds. “That meant it was never envisaged as an album I was going to take out on the road”.
Which makes it perfect for releasing during the COVID-19 shutdown. ‘Even In Exile’ is set for release on 14 Aug. Listen to new single, ‘The Boy From The Plantation’, here:
