Placebo: side projects and new albums

Big thanks to Mariya for the email tipping our attention in the direction of Stefan's update on what's happening in the Placebo world right now:

Just want to say I’ve got an album coming out in June with my side project Hotel Persona. This is something I’ve been doing in my free time from Placebo over the past couple of years with some friends in London. It’s basically a collection of tracks we wrote for fun to play at parties, nothing to take too seriously! It’s pop music with a dancefloor beat, and lyrics sometimes bordering on comedy. Kind of exploring the entertainment value of music and making something a little more light hearted than what I am used to, something people with a couple of drinks in them could understand and sing along to! Some of the tracks are a little more serious and some quite intimate and fragile, and we’ve also got a couple of guests to bring some flavour.

Placebo is currently writing the next record and will record it this year, so Placebo fans shouldn’t be worried that this project is taking away from that.

So, we figure that would peg a Placebo album (and tour) early 2009?

Hotel Persona are interesting - Mr. Molko turns up to keep an eye on what Stefan's up to; also involved is Brits-trashing breast-showing, union-busting, none-more-80s sex symbol Samantha Fox.

This is the kind of noise they make: