Irvine Welsh & The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra - Men in Love (2025)

"Men in Love is a collaborative concept album by Irvine Welsh and The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, exploring the complexities of love, relationships, and the human condition. The album blends classic Motown and disco influences with contemporary electronic dance production, creating a unique and powerful sound that is both nostalgic and fresh. From soaring anthems to intimate ballads, Men in Love takes the listener on a journey through the highs and lows of romance, celebrating the power of connection, vulnerability, and the enduring search for love in a chaotic world.

The album will be released concurrently with Welsh's new novel, also titled Men in Love. The book is a sequel to Welsh's seminal work, Trainspotting, and continues the story of Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, Begbie, and other beloved characters. The album serves as a sonic companion to the novel, with its themes, lyrics, and musical atmosphere reflecting the experience and inner turmoil of its characters. The album also introduces The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, a unique musical entity with their own unique music releases in the pipeline”

BUT, WHY DISCO?

“In uncertain times, dominated by the ascendancy of soul dead oligarchs, their corrosive technology and looting economics, the great positive constant for humanity remains our infinite capacity for love.

Music is still the medium by which we bypass their reductive, low frequency world, and if we can sing and dance and express our collective love in joy and rapture, we render their pathetic schemes the irrelevant sideshows they deserve to be.

One of the greatest musical forms in delivering that ecstasy has been discotheque music. No matter how confused our men (and women) have been in the quest for love, as we are forced to earn a living to pay for our fun, our real predilections are to party like it’s 2099. So don’t diss the disco, let’s dance away the heartache or die trying, because nothing else makes any sense.”
Irvine Welsh

Men In Love (The Book):

There wasn’t an album they wouldn’t buy, or a drug they wouldn’t try.
Then it spiralled out of control . . .
They were left with nothing.
Nothing but the eternal quest of all men: the search for love.

Opening in the late 1980s as rave culture is born and moving into the 1990s, Men In Love reunites the Trainspotting crew for a riotous new journey.

Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie leave heroin behind and seek joy, and the hope of redemption, on the dance floor. Each wants to feel alive in the closing years of Thatcher’s Britain, and they fill their days with sex and romance and trying to get ahead. Taking in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris, the group charges towards an unexpected event: Sick Boy’s wedding day.

But is falling in love the answer, or just another doomed quest?
credits
releases July 25, 2025

Performers: Irvine Welsh & The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra
Singers: Shaun Escoffery & Louise Marshall
Lyrics: Irvine Welsh
Production: The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra

Tracklist
1. A Man in Love with Love (feat. Shaun Escoffery) (4:18)
2. You Gotta Be Strong (feat. Louise Marshall) (4:34)
3. Damn Straight (feat. Shaun Escoffery) (4:02)
4. Saviour (feat. Shaun Escoffery) (5:15)
5. Love at Last (feat. Louise Marshall) (2:59)
6. Supply Lines of Love (feat. Shaun Escoffery) (4:03)
7. A Whole New Side of Me (feat. Louise Marshall) (4:34)
8. Dreams (feat. Louise Marshall) (4:48)
9. Men in Love (feat. Louise Marshall) (4:44)