Pulp are filming an hour-long movie to accompany the release of their new album, ‘This Is Hardcore’, which is due out on March 30 through Island Records in he UK.
The band are working with a number of UK-and US-based visual artists and directors on the project. The first confirmed collaborator is London artist Tracey Emin. The film is described by Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker as a random patchwork of collaborations and will include five songs from the album including the promo video for the single ‘This Is Hardcore’. The band are currently finalising a deal with Channel 4 for a spring broadcast.
Pulp’s bassist Steve Mackey told NME: “The central concept of it is the idea of ‘hardcore’, the nitty-gritty of your life and personal issues that really affect you. We asked a lot of people a lot of questions while we were making it, mainly sexual things. What we’ve said to them is we’re going to edit it together, show it to them and see if they like their contribution before we use it. A lot of people did it in quite good faith.”
“When we started making this film everyone was talking about The Rolling Stones’ Rock’n’Roll Circus, which I think is fairly atrocious. We just wanted to avoid reference points, because people always try and pigeonhole you with references. We tried to drag in lots of interesting people who are doing good things in their area.”
Meanwhile, Jarvis Cocker has additionally been commissioned by Channel 4 to work on three one-hour documentary programmes about “outsider artists.” The singer is working with a former film college friend, Martin Wallace, who worked with Pulp on their early videos.
Jarvis revealed to NME: “The documentaries are about people who never went to art college and haven’t got any knowledge of art history, and also who usually live outside society as well. We’re travelling around the world in a car. It’s a cross between a documentary and a road movie; it’s not some dry academic thing, it’s not me trying to be Melvyn Bragg or anything. The first one is about a French postman I found out about when I was at college. For 30 years he collected stones and built this big palace in his back garden. It’s in the live video we did.”
Filming for the TV shows begins in April with broadcast expected early next year.