1/3 Tonight at midnight, Pink Floyd will release a new song, ‘Hey Hey Rise Up’, which sees David Gilmour and Nick Mason joined by Guy Pratt & Nitin Sawhney, with an extraordinary vocal by Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox.
Listen/download at https://t.co/i1l92D3AYU

— Pink Floyd (@pinkfloyd) April 7, 2022

The band’s forthcoming new song is entitled “Hey, Hey, Rise Up”, and is their first brand new, freshly recorded musical release since The Division Bell, which was released back in 1994. The tune features a sample from Andriy Khlyvnyuk, who is the frontman of Ukrainian band Boombox. According to NME, a press release stated that Pink Floyd- which currently consists of David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney- recorded the new song on March 30^th. The release of the single will also be paired with a music video, directed by Mat Whitecross. The sample of Khlyvnyuk is from a viral video of the Boombox frontman singing a patriotic Ukrainian song entitled “The Red Viburnum” at Sofiskaya Square in the country’s capital city, Kyiv. The moving video can be viewed at the link below.

Трішки мотивації від лідера гурту «Бумбокс» Андрія Хливнюка pic.twitter.com/VQFdRjahGF — Armed Forces (@ArmedForcesUkr) February 28, 2022

In a statement, Gilmour said: “I hope it will receive wide support and publicity. We want to raise funds for humanitarian charities, and raise morale. We want express our support for Ukraine and in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.”. Gilmour added: “We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world’s major powers.”

Gilmour went on to talk about the creation of the track, saying: “We recorded the track and video in our barn where we did all our Von Trapped Family live streams during lockdown. It’s the same room that we did the ‘Barn Jams’ with Rick Wright back in 2007. Janina Pedan made the set in a day and we had Andriy singing on the screen while we played, so the four of us had a vocalist, albeit not one who was physically present with us.”

Of the conflict, Gilmour said: “Russian soldiers, stop killing your brothers. There will be no winners in this war. My daughter in law is Ukrainian and my granddaughters want to visit and know their beautiful country. Stop this before it is all destroyed.”

The film, ‘4Real’, will be directed by Lindy Heymann and the movie is due to start shooting, next year. However, a spokeswomen for the Manic Street Preachers has told NME: that “the band have nothing to do with this film, and nothing to say about it.”

Heymann, who will be directing the film, is mainly known for directing music videos and has worked with likes of Paul McCartney, Suede and The Specials. Her first film, ‘Showboy’, was a documentary about a film producer who tried to become a dancer, in Las Vegas, after getting fired. Heymann’s other works include the recent short film, ‘The Laughing King’, which was about male suicide.

Although the Manic Street Preachers are not involved in the upcoming biopic, ‘4Real’, it does have the support and backing of Creative England. The film is named after a famous incident, in 1991, which saw Edwards carve the phrase “4Real” into his arm, after he was asked by then-NME journalist Steve Lamacq about how genuine the music of the Manic Street Preachers was.

Other than confirming that filming will begin next year, there is not a lot of information about the film including casting details for, ‘4Real’, which have still to be announced. Speaking about the forthcoming biopic, ‘4Real’, Heymann told Montsebru: “I have two films in the pipeline. One is 4Real, a portrait of Richey Edwards from Manic Street Preachers, which we hope to shoot next year. The other is Rum Doxy Diver, a romantic adventure which tells the tale of Grace Hammer – a feisty pickpocket – set in Victorian England.”

Edwards went missing back in 1995 and was declared dead, in 2008, having been missing since his car was abandoned, in February 1995, near the Severn Bridge, in Wales, on the eve of a promotional tour to the US. According to NME, “the Severn Bridge is a known suicide spot, and it has been generally assumed that Edwards died by suicide.”

However, a book published in January, ‘Withdrawn Traces’, says new evidence suggests Edwards may have staged his disappearance. The book, which is the first to be written with the co-operation of Edwards’ sister Rachel Elias, says sightings of Edwards on a kibbutz, in Israel may well be genuine. He had apparently become fascinated with being a recluse.