Pet Shop Boys have officially announced a new album, A man from the future, to be released on 9 October 2026.
Created in collaboration with Alan Turing biographer Andrew Hodges, this poignant eight-track musical composition explores eight significant chapters in the life and death of Alan Turing, the pioneering British mathematician and codebreaker who laid the foundations of modern computing.
The album is described as one that blends the Pet Shop Boys’ signature electronic music and distinctive vocals with intimate string orchestrations by Sven Helbig – performed by the Manchester Camerata Octet – and spoken-word narration by Olivier Award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson.
“Our motive in creating this work was to make a musical memorial to Alan Turing who gave so much to his country and the world and was rewarded for it by being prosecuted for his sexuality. Alan made a massive contribution to the defeat of Germany in World War II and was a pioneer of computing, imagining a world with intelligent computers. He also looked forward to a time when being gay would be accepted as normal. In both his professional and private lives, he was ahead of his time.” the duo said of their new work.
The work was originally created by Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe and Andrew Hodges in 2012–13 and performed at the BBC Proms in 2014. The Pet Shop Boys have since reworked it to give more electronic emphasis and new string arrangements.
The album will feature eight tracks; Natural wonders every child should know, He dreamed of machines, The Enigma, Other ranks, The memory and the control, The trial, Only in his death and the title track, A man from the future.
The new record, which will be available digitally, on double CD, Blu-ray, and as a single and double LP, is the duo’s first new music since their acclaimed 2024 album Nonetheless.
Throughout their career, Pet Shop Boys have made many interesting projects alongside their regular albums, including a soundtrack to the 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin, music for a stage production of My Beautiful Laundrette, their own musical Closer to Heaven, and its spin-off cabaret show Muzik, as well as the ballet The Most Incredible Thing.
Alan Turing was a major figure in mathematics, but also posthumously to gay rights
Alan Turing is credited as the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. The work of the English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptoanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist was not fully recognised until years after his tragic death.
During World War II, Turing played a critical role in Allied code breaking and was responsible for a number of important breakthroughs that are credited with shortening the conflict. He later worked on some of the earliest computers, and his theories underpinned major developments in the emerging field of computer science.
In 1952, Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after it was discovered that he was homosexual. He accepted chemical castration as an alternative to imprisonment. Two years later, he died by suicide.
In 2009, following an online campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a public apology for the way Turing had been treated. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon. Then in 2017, the British government issued an apology to all people who had been prosecuted under previous laws and introduced a pathway for convictions to be disregarded. The legislation is commonly referred to as Alan Turing’s Law.
Turing is now featured on the British fifty-pound note and has been honoured through statues, academic prizes, and portrayals in film and television, and now a musical tribute.
