Image by Ed Fielding

It’s been only a brief moment since we last heard of influential new-waver Gary Numan. Earlier this year, the British keyboard songsmith lent his unmistakeable voice to the excellent Battles track “My Machines”. Now, he returns with a new LP for himself, Dead Son Rising.

Due out October 24th, on his own website no less, Numan’s latest effort came to fruition from a series of demo tapes he had from other projects. “The original ideas behind these songs are now barely visible,” Numan explained in an issued press release. “In the last nine months, the album has grown into another animal, something more experimental and fluid. It’s ended up being something I’m really very proud of.” He has no plans of taming this “animal”, either. In fact, he’ll follow up …Rising with another LP in 2012, titled Splinter.

To support the current record, however, Numan has dates scheduled across the UK this month and again in December, when he’ll play ATP Festival. No word on whether or not he’ll make his way overseas, but we’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, check out the tracklist for Dead Son Rising below, which features song titles that take cues from a science-fiction saga Numan is currently writing. What a creative technophile, huh?

Update: You can now listen to a radio edit of Numan’s new single “The Fall” below.

Gary Numan – “The Fall”

Dead Son Rising Tracklist:
01. Resurrection
02. Big Noise Transmission
03. Dead Sun Rising
04. When The Sky Bleeds, He Will Come
05. For The Rest Of My Life
06. Not The Love We Dream Of
07. The Fall
08. We Are The Lost
09. For The Rest Of My Life (Reprise)
10. Into Battle
11. Not The Love We Dream Of (Piano version)

Gary Numan 2011 Tour Dates:
9/15 – Nottingham, UK @ Rock City
9/16 – Bournemouth, UK @ O2 Academy
9/17 – London, UK @ O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
9/18 – Wolverhampton, UK @ Wulfrun Hall
9/19 – Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy
9/20 – Glasgow, UK @ O2 ABC
9/21 – Liverpool, UK @ O2 Academy
12/7 – Warwickshire, UK @ Leamington Spa Assembly Hall
12/8 – Manchester, UK @ HMV Ritz
2/9 – Southhampton, UK @ Guildhall
12/10 – Minehead, Somerset @ ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas
12/11 – Hertfordshire, UK @ The Forum (Univ. of Hertfordshire SU)

Still refusing to shy away from big promises, Chapman states that Turning the Mind is “the fully formed manifesto.” (His first album, We Can Create was, in contrast, simply “the birth of Maps.”)

But there’s also some pretty interesting ideas at play, not just pretty, flowery hyperboles. Keeping very much in his vein of indie electronica, Chapman here explores “themes related to the human mind and the way certain stimuli, particularly chemical, can affect the mind in different ways.”

Chemical: Meaning THC or SSRI’s? Well, the album’s title comes from the Buddhist-influenced, cognitive-therapy practice of mindfulness, while Chapman says that the “journey of extremes” the music takes might mean, for example, depression to euphoria. So maybe Xanax, then just X?