Pet Shop Boys have released A man from the future, an eight-part electronic and orchestral work about the life and death of Alan Turing, the British mathematician and codebreaker who laid the foundations of modern computing. It came out on 9 October 2026 through Parlophone.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe wrote the piece in 2012 and 2013 with Turing’s biographer Andrew Hodges, and first performed it with the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers at a late-night BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in July 2014. More than a decade later they went back to it and gave it a stronger electronic emphasis.
This new version is played by Pet Shop Boys and the Manchester Camerata Octet. Sven Helbig reworked his orchestrations for eight string players and co-produced the album with the duo, while Maarten Vos added production, programming and synthesisers. Boys from the Manchester Grammar School choir sing on four tracks.
Actress Juliet Stevenson narrates text taken from Hodges’ book Alan Turing: The Enigma, edited and extended by Tennant and Hodges. The story runs in order from Turing’s school days and Cambridge, through his work breaking the German Enigma code in the Second World War and his predictions of artificial intelligence, to his conviction for a homosexual relationship and his death in 1954.
The closing title track uses a passage from Gordon Brown’s 2009 statement apologising for how Turing was treated, followed by the royal pardon granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013.
“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,” the duo said in the release announcement. “In both his professional and private lives, he was ahead of his time.”
The eight chapters are 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 A man from the future.
A man from the future is out now on vinyl, CD, Blu-ray audio and digitally. It follows Nonetheless, the 2024 album that reached number 2 in the UK.
Pet Shop Boys – https://www.petshopboys.co.uk/news/2026-10-09/a-man-from-the-future-4
Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-man-from-the-future/6806305498
The Irish Times review – https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2026/10/09/a-man-from-the-future-review-what-took-pet-shop-boys-so-long-to-release-this-wonderful-album/
The Quietus review – https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/pet-shop-boys-a-man-from-the-future/
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