New OMD Book explores the electropop outfit’s legacy
OMD have a new book out in November which tracks the band’s extensive history and musical career. It includes input from the band members as well as contributions from the fan community.
Pretending To See The Future is the first official biography of the band since 1987’s Messages. The new book will help assess the legendary synth-pop outfit’s position in the history of electronic music in a year which celebrates OMD’s 40th anniversary. It covers their Merseyside beginnings via debut single ‘Electricity‘ (released on Manchester’s iconic Factory label) in 1979 through to a string of Top 40 hits including ‘Enola Gay‘, ‘Souvenir’, ‘Joan of Arc’, ‘Locomotion’ and US smash ‘If You Leave’.
It’s a history that includes a catalogue of classic albums, including their 1981 opus Architecture And Morality and 1991’s Sugar Tax through to their post-reformation album The Punishment Of Luxury. OMD have also chalked up an impressive number of live performances over their decades-spanning career, which has seen them play to enthusiastic audiences around the world. This includes their legendary US support slot for Depeche Mode in 1988 when they played to over 60,000 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
The book contains commentary from OMD founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys as well as input from Martin Cooper, Malcolm Holmes and Stuart Kershaw. It’s also packed full of fan memorabilia, hand-written lyrics, hand-drawn sketches for artwork and hundreds of photos, including full colour images and previously unseen pictures from the band’s own archive.
As well as fan stories the book will include contributions from:
Professor Brian Cox
Gary Numan
Phil Oakey
Stephen Morris
Jeremy Vine
Steve Lamacq
Richard Blade
Adam Clayton
Howard Jones
Peter Saville
Karl Bartos
John Dowie
Pretending To See The Future is available to pre-order now on PledgeMusic and Amazon. The book will also be available from all good book stores.
Those who pre-order from PledgeMusic before the end of August will also receive a bonus flexi-disc of a very rare and previously unheard pre-OMD demo of ‘Messages’ from the summer of 1978.
Pretending To See The Future is due out on 4th November 2018.
Pre-order the book on PledgeMusic: https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/omd-pretending-to-see-the-future
