Claudia Brücken, Susanne Freytag and Steve Lipson announce xPropaganda album

(Image credit: Jimmy King)

Prog Award winner Claudia Brücken has teamed up with her former Propaganda colleague Susanne Freytag and the band's former producer Steve Lipson (a member of Trevor Horn's pop prog band Producers), to announce a new album as xPropaganda. The new outfit will release a brand new album, The Heart Is Strange through their old label ZTT on May 20. You can listen to first single Don't (You Mess With Me) below.

The new trio have also announced a London show at The Garage on May 24, where "Claudia, Susanne & Stephen will perform The Heart Is Strange in full, as well as some much-loved Propaganda classics from their back catalogue."

Propaganda were formed in Dusseldorf in 1982 by industrial musician Ralf Dorper. The band signed to ZTT and released their acclaimed debut album A Secret Wish in 1985. Despite hit singles such as Dr. Mabuse and Duel, the band's career became embroiled in legal wrangles and they split in 1990.

The four key members, Brücken, Freytag, Dorper and Michael Mertens, have reunited sporadically over the years. This current activity from vocalists Brücken and Freytag came about after the pair performed two sold-out shows at the Grarage as xPropaganda in 2018, and followed it up by convening with Lipson to begin writing new material

“We always thought it was a shame that an album as distinctive and acclaimed as A Secret Wish seemed destined to be a one-off. It certainly meant a lot to us, and it never seemed right that the story stopped there. Working again with Stephen Lipson and means that we can turn our dreams about what the ZTT follow up to A Secret Wish would sound like into a reality."

Claudia Brücken teamed up with former Tangerine Dream member Jerome Froese to record the Beginn album in 2018. The same year she won the Outer Limits Award at the Progressive Music Awards.

The Heart Is Strange will be available on coloured vinyl, black vinyl, CD, 2CD and digital

Get The Heart Is Strange.

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Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.