Manic Street Preachers have released a new remix of Steven Wilson’s track ‘Economies of Scale’ – listen to the new version below.
The song was originally released on Wilson’s latest solo album ‘The Harmony Codex’, which came out in September. Wilson, the singer and multi-instrumentalist who rose to prominence with the band Porcupine Tree, has now released seven albums under his own name.
Speaking about the remix, Manics frontman James Dean Bradfield has said: “When I first heard ‘Economies of Scale’, I found myself transported back to 1984, when Sean [Moore, Manic Street Preachers drummer] came back from Germany where he’d been on tour with the Celynen Colliery Brass Band.”
“He had a bootleg copy of ‘Synchronicity’ by The Police. We couldn’t stop playing it, especially tracks like ‘Walking in Your Footsteps’ and ‘Murder by Numbers’. There was something about the bareness of the vocals, the steely percussion and slight detachment that reminded us of that era of The Police, along with Stewart Copeland’s solo work on the Rumblefish soundtrack.”
“With those things in mind, we had quickly found a direction and collectively connected with track. Once we got in the studio, Wire immediately sought to push the second half of the track in more of a ‘Holy Bible’ direction.”
In an interview with NME around its release, Wilson discussed how he persuaded the Manics to remix the song. “Even though I’m far from a household name and I think I’m very much under the radar, I think most musicians have a respect for me. When I approached Elton John on ‘The Future Bites’, I was absolutely stunned that he’s a fan of mine. I’ve since found out Elton owns basically every record ever made, but still, that’s amazing.”
“The Manics took my lead vocal and created a whole different piece of music to go under it. It was like nothing I’d expected and it blew me away. I’ve just done a remix for them in return. I wanted to do away with the notion of remixes. I approached people like Roland Orzabal who aren’t known for doing remixes, to say instead: ‘Reimagine the song how you want’.”
Wilson’s previous album ‘The Future Bites’ was released in 2021 and featured Elton John, Mystery Jets, Enter Shikari and The Cure drummer Jason Cooper.
In 2022, Porcupine Tree released ‘Closure/Continuation’, their first album of new material for 12 years, which reached Number Two on the UK Albums Chart, only kept from the top spot by Harry Styles’ ‘Harry’s House’.