Born Again In Sound: GoGo Penguin Reemerges With ‘Necessary Fictions’ & New Vision

Manchester, UK’s GoGo Penguin announced a new album, Necessary Fictions, arriving on June 20 via XXIM/ Sony. The genre-blending trio also shared the lead single, “Fallowfield Loops.”

Necessary Fictions is GoGo Penguin’s seventh studio album and follows their 2023 LP, Everything Is Going to Be OK. The new record sees the band — Chris Illingworth (piano, synths), Nick Blacka (bass, synths), and newest member Jon Scott (drums) — welcoming guests Manchester Collective, British-Ugandan artist Daudi Matsiko and Rakhi Singh.

Press materials further detailed Necessary Fictions:

[GoGo Penguin] are operating from a place of confidence, having truly found their groove with Scott, and Illingworth and Blacka both in their fifth decade, and truly embracing who they are without fear. The album sees them expanding their signature sound, drawing deeper into modular synths, and, for the first time, welcoming other voices into their sonic world.

“This is what we want to make right now, and it feels authentic,” Blacka said of the trio’s new music.

The first taste of Necessary Fictions comes in the form of “Fallowfield Loops,” which arrived with a music video directed by Illingworth and Blacka. The visual features images of Manchester’s iconic Toast Rack building, “the brutalist landmark seen on the album’s cover…serves as a visual extension of the track’s mood: stark, nostalgic, and full of movement,” as per the press release.

Stream the music video for “Fallowfield Loops” below:

Necessary Fictions Tracklist:

1. Umbra
2. FALLOWFIELD LOOPS
3. Forgive the Damages (feat. Daudi Matsiko)
4. What We Are and What We Are Meant to Be
5. Background Hiss Reminds Me of Rain
6. The Turn Within
7. Living Bricks in Dead Mortar
8. Naga Ghost
9. Luminous Giants (feat. Rakhi Singh and Manchester Collective)
10. Float (Loi Krathong, 2003)
11. State of Flux (feat. Manchester Collective)
12. Silence Speaks