Live European festivals...presumably North America at some stage. I wonder if Japan and Australia will get a look-in. Glastonbury has to be a strong possibility (I forgot to get up early this morning and queue for tickets...). Surely more British dates (indoors?).

Hopefully some legacy recordings that piggy-back on Mark Webber's book and we get a compilation of unreleased Pulp material.

As for new material, all bets are off after an indisputable NEW Pulp song was played this weekend. You could argue that After You and Hymn Of The North were not technically new band material.

Nick is a rascal, when he shut a new album down in that NME piece I had given up hope but he and Candida both have gone out of their way to be secretive about 2024 when asked recently at public events. The band have no need for/interest in doing press promo for the group so you've got to think Jarvis has some kind of plan and they will row in behind whatever that is. I loved seeing Mark's involvement in the new song, that sliding down the frets to anticipate the chorus, maybe he's found a new lease of life for Pulp - his brilliant commentary on the Island reissued singles on streaming as well as his Different Class Listening Party contributions during Lockdown, along with this new book all suggest he's got his love back for the group.

I always thought that Hymn Of The North wasn't just a Jarvis song, that he wanted to make it Pulp, because there was no precedent for any of his solo stuff/written for other people-songs making the grade at a Pulp concert, especially a "hits/best of' tour.

The key question for me is whether he sees existing Jarv Is... unreleased material as part of future Pulp recordings or is that, ahem, beyond the pale. I thought we might see Serafina in Mexico after her maternity leave but if she isn't there, maybe that band will continue to have a separate entity. If not, we have the makings of half a new album now performed live:

1. Slow Jam (Bad Friday)
2. Locked Down
3. Proceed To The Route
4. Hymn Of The North
5. Background Noise

6. After You (?)

I'd be more than happy to have all of these songs on record. I also wonder whether Pulp would be tempted to revisit more unreleased material from throughout their career - not because they're struggling with new material (if anything, it seems to come effortlessly to Jarvis in recent years) but because they've left some great songs in studios over the years and they may have a healthy diatance with them now where they can be resurrected as with After You.

So, yeah, basically....who the heck knows?!

-- Edited by Eamonn on Sunday 19th of November 2023 11:38:14 AM

Disagree on Slow Jam. It's sad and wonderful.

Jarv Is...live at Glastonbury 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9MwtfZAl2A&t=2279s

Proceed To The Route at 16:00 mins
Locked Down at 25:37

Yeah, listening to both, they do feel less Pulp than Hymn/Background Noise but then Pulp did generally forge ahead - WLL doesn't have much in common with Hardcore, DC and certainly not HnH.

is the open mouth a hint of the aesthetic of the new album ?

 Primavera Sound announced

I'm telling you I had a dream they were headlining Glastonbury the night before the Glastonbury tickets went on sale and I didn't even know those tickets were going on sale. I wasn't think of that or Pulp. It's a premonition! If they come back to Ireland I wish it was their own gig. They did electric picnic before but that's sold out already. They might not come here anyway. St Annes Dublin was just the best gig ever. I know a lot of people that weren't too bothered beforehand ended being absolutely blown away by that performance.

Imagine a new Pulp record. 2024 is shaping up to be a great year if they do :) the two new songs are great already and I like the more mature sound. So good to have them back in our lives. Not that they ever went away if you're a fan but to see them doing tours again and doing new songs just brings me back to that feeling of the 90s and that feeling I'd been missing!

I will do that cropped up in the middle of a random dream where I was walking around with a fish trying to find water to put the fish in and then next thing the dream cut to Pulp are headlining Glastonbury. I have had prophetic dreams before so I hope the Pulp part is right and not the fish part!!! I just thought it was odd that I had no knowledge of the Glasto tickets going on sale and I also was not thinking about Pulp.

I think that there's definitely something new on the way. A brand new album would be fantastic but an EP would certainly be nice.

They have much more than an album's worth of material at hand if they wanted to finish some of it off and get it released. This includes new Pulp, new Jarv Is and unreleased Pulp songs from 1999-2000:

Hymn of the North
Background Noise
Proceed to the Route
Locked Down
Slow Jam
Darren
Quiet Revolution
Cuckoo
Got to Have Love (2 versions)
M'Lady
Grandfather's Nursery
The Performance of a Lifetime
St. Just
My Mistake
Duck Diving
Love You Baby
Six String
Last Song in the World
Medieval Owl
Dream Galaxy
The other song that was recorded for "Hits"

Granted, the last 6 were probably abandoned in the early stages or left as instrumentals. But still...