For his next project, William Orbit is working with musical royalty — Queen.
Though the British producer is keeping mum on details, the recording project is expected to involve an album with previously unheard tracks featuring the vocals of late frontman Freddie Mercury.
Orbit, who produced Madonna’s 1998 album Ray Of Light and worked on her 2012 effort MDNA, has used his Twitter account to spread news of his latest adventure.
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“Am definitely working with QUEEN. Amazing songs. That’s all I’m sayin 4 now. Watch this space,” he wrote.
Am definitely working with QUEEN. Amazing songs. That’s all I’m sayin 4 now. Watch this space.
— William Orbit (@WilliamOrbit) July 29, 2014
Earlier this year, Queen guitarist Brian May told listeners of BBC Wales that the iconic rock band was restoring unreleased works for a new collection to be released later this year.
May said the album’s title would probably be Queen Forever, and it’s been suggested the set would include a never-heard-before collaboration between Mercury and Michael Jackson from 1983.
Queen to Release New Album, Unreleased Freddie Mercury Songs
“Most of it comes from the ’80s when we were in full flight,” May said in the interview. “It is quite emotional. It is the big, big ballads and the big, big epic sound. It wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t have done this restoration job. We had to start from scratch because we only had scraps. But knowing how it would have happened if we had finished it, I can sit there and make it happen with modern technology.”
Though Queen has been without its mercurial singer for more than 20 years (Mercury died in 1991 due to complications with AIDS), the group remains a sales titan.
Queen’s Greatest Hits from 1981 is the biggest-selling album in the U.K., and in February became the first to shift six million copies, the Official Charts Company reported. ABBA’s “Gold“ is No. 2 on the all-time list, and nearly a million copies adrift.
Queen’s Greatest Hits II has sold close to four million copies since its release in 1991, and it’s the tenth biggest-selling album in the U.K.
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May and Taylor are still performing as Queen, though bass player John Deacon doesn’t join his former bandmates on stage these days. The group has just completed a tour of North America with Adam Lambert taking vocal duties. Australian dates will begin later this month.
Queen was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2001. Last year, the outfit received a PRS for Music Heritage Award at Imperial College London, the site of their first gig.