It’s happening: British band Sade are back in the studio—Brad Pitt and producer Damien Quintard’s historic Miraval Studios, to be exact, making them the first act to record there since its reopening, per a press release. This is the band’s first new album in over a decade, a follow-up to their last LP Soldier of Love, released in 2010. Their last new music came in 2018 with two singles, “Flower of the Universe” and “The Big Unknown,” with the promise of a record that never came.
Miraval Studios itself was originally founded by French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier in 1977. It has been home to the makings of albums such as The Wall by Pink Floyd, AC/DC’s Blow Up Your Video, The Cranberries’ Bury the Hatchet, and, of course, Promise and Stronger Than Pride, both by Sade.
The studio finds place on the grounds of Château Miraval, a vineyard in the south of France. It was purchased by Pitt and Angelina Jolie in 2012, and is now caught in the midst of contentious divorce proceedings. But for Sade Adu, lead singer of the band that shares her name, the studio holds great memories: “You could feel the love that she and the band had for this place,” Quintard told Billboard.
Listen to Sade’s “Flower of the Universe,” from Disney’s 2018 A Wrinkle In Time, below.