Photo by Neu Reekie via Irvine Welsh’s Facebook Page
Never one to stick to a single lane – or decade – Irvine Welsh is back, this time not just with a novel, but with a full-blown disco album to match. Announced for release on 24 July, 2025, Men In Love picks up directly where his cult classic Trainspotting left off, plunging Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie into the late 1980s: Thatcher’s endgame, rave’s messy genesis, and the slow, strobing glow of redemption—or at least distraction.
While Porno and Skagboys offered jump cuts in either direction, Men In Love stitches itself to the original’s raw ending like a fevered remix. Welsh’s new twist? A 10-track album of ecstatic disco, produced by The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, with lyrics penned by the author himself. ‘A Man in Love with Love’ the record’s first single, is already out—equal parts croon, groove, and glittered melancholy.
In typical form, Welsh refuses to separate narrative from atmosphere. “Music,” he says, “is still the medium by which we bypass their reductive, low frequency world.” That world, according to Welsh, is ruled by “soul-dead oligarchs,” but disco remains defiant—a spiritual resistance, a sweaty, joyful middle finger to the powers that be.
“Don’t diss the disco,” he urges. “Let’s dance away the heartache or die trying.”
Men In Love, both novel and album, arrives 24 July via Port Sunshine Recordings, with Welsh hitting the road on a book tour across England and Scotland this summer. If nothing else, it’s proof that in a culture hooked on nostalgia, Welsh is still finding new ways to turn up the volume.
Pre-order the album HERE.
