To mark the one-year anniversary of Big Stir Records' release of Museum Of Tomorrow, the acclaimed 2021 album from Manchester, England's long-running collective The Speed Of Sound, we're releasing a brand new virtual Double-A Extended 12” Single! Out and streaming everywhere this Friday, September 16 and up for pre-order at bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com now, and features “Virtual Reality 123” and “Charlotte (12” Version)” both clocking in at over 6 minutes and double the length of their LP versions... just like a classic 12” single! And while these tracks remain “virtual” and digital-only, the original tracks are still available on vinyl (and CD) on MUSEUM OF TOMORROW, available at www.bigstirrecords.com and in record stores worldwide.

Throughout their 33-year history ,The Speed Of Sound have always been idiosyncratic, counter-intuitive and perpetually looking for something new. This pairing of two fresh extended pieces explores more space than is available within the physical constraints of vinyl within their highly acclaimed album of last year. In the process both pieces become epic in differing and unexpected ways. Is this Progressive Pop? There is only one way to find out:

Virtual Reality 123
A dramatically beautiful, yet desolate soundscape unfurls within the startlingly atmospheric pairing of grand piano and guitar feedback blended with the human voice. “Virtual Reality 123” is joyous and steely resolute in its determination to create and inhabit a personal parallel universe – a different realm constructed for the purpose of keeping the work/life spheres completely separate. A possibility powered by enabling and running an ‘alternative-life’ programme alongside the daily grind. Stepping from one to the other and closing the door between them. Replacing the drudgeries of the physical analogue personal life with a digital perfection. The virtual world becomes a refuge from actual existence and the place when life exists in a state of perpetual euphoria. “This is the full version of Virtual Reality - as originally conceived - parts 1, 2 and 3,” explains TSOS leading light JOHN ARMSTRONG. “It was simply too long to fit on the album in its entirety, so here it is in its unedited glory. We couldn’t get the piano into the recording studio so we recorded that remotely and added it in.”

Charlotte (12” Version)
Taking the already existing sense of anxious menace within the album version of “Charlotte”, the extended version here adds a ghostly and delicately layered ephemeral depth of neo-gothic proportions, enhancing the dread within the runaway choruses leaving no need for flickering candles: true terror is within the mind.
“The song is based on actual events from the 1850’s; the first time we played 'Charlotte' live was in Elizabeth Gaskell’s house within the actual room where Charlotte Bronte hid behind a curtain to avoid meeting an unexpected visitor while she was staying in her fellow novelist’s home. That gig was just two weeks before Charlotte’s 200th birthday. It was easy to imagine her still there and hiding from us too. Anxiety is the natural state of the modern world, but it has been around much longer. The part of Charlotte on the introduction is performed by Janet Armstrong.”