THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Simple Minds’ 18th studio album Direction Of The Heart finds the band at their most confident and anthemic best and is an inspired celebration of life, most evident on the captivating lead single Vision Thing. Guests on the album include Sparks frontman Russell Mael and songwriter Gary Clark, Simple Minds bassist Ged Grimes’ music partner from the band Danny Wilson.
But for frontman Jim Kerr, the question wasn’t ‘who should we invite to our comeback party?’ He was more concerned with “how to make a feel-good electro-rock’ record, during the very worst of times. Direction Of The Heart is the result of that challenge,” he says. “Who would have thought we’d have so much fun creating it?”
Most of Direction Of The Heart’s tracks were written, created and demoed in Sicily, where both Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill live. Unable to come to the U.K. because of quarantine rules, the album was recorded at Hamburg’s Chameleon Studios. Here they produced the album, later enlisting Andy Wright (Massive Attack, Echo & The Bunnymen) and Gavin Goldberg (Simply Red, KT Tunstall) for additional production.
Bandmembers Grimes (who co-wrote two of the new songs, First You Jump and Solstice Kiss), drummer Cherisse Osei and vocalist Sarah Brown joined them on some of the tracks, recording their parts separately in London. All of this disparate work is belied by an album which sounds like a cohesive record — one of the most exciting and invigorating of Simple Minds’ career to date.”
