New U2 Album Influenced By African Trance Music

U2’s Bono has admitted that the sounds on the band’s new album will surprise a few people.

The band are currently working on the project in the South of France, however, Bono revealed that sessions for the album initially began last year in Africa.

“We did some recording in Morocco last year. All the band went to an amazing religious music festival in Fez with some incredible sufi singers,” he told The Independent.

“It was a real humbling thing for a punk rock shouter, listening to these people who just close their eyes for 40 minutes and sing the most sophisticated melodies."

He continued: "We got this little riad, a small hotel with a courtyard in the middle and set up the band there, with a square of sky over our head. The two great catalysts of U2's recording life, [producers] Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, joined us. We'd record during the day and then disappear into windy streets of the medina at night. It was an inspiring experience and a drummer's paradise."

Although the singer refused to divulge exactly what impact the Morocco sessions had had on the band, he did say that fans should brace themselves for some trance music.

"U2 in dancefloor shock!" he joked. "Normally when you play a U2 tune, it clears the dancefloor. And that may not be true of this. There's some trance influences. But there's some very hardcore guitar coming out of The Edge. Real molten metal." 

He added: "It's not like anything we've ever done before, and we don't think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either."