The things that dreams are made of

The Human League are putting together a new record - without a label, as Joanne Catherall explains:

"We've always been supported by record companies and that's not really happening to as many groups anymore. We'll have to find another way of getting it out to the public.

"We're all keen to put out new music, our only problem is, the way we have traditionally put out music is not available to us anymore.

"It's quite scary having to think about it, because someone else has sort of run, we make the records, and someone else does everything else for us, and now we've got to do it all ourselves, and as everyone knows we're incredibly slow, and lazy!

Even the last time the band made a record - back in 2001 - the very idea that a big name group might start work on a record without a label underwriting and shaping everything would have seemed, at best, futuristic. In 2008, it's interesting but not extraordinary. By the time of the next Human League album, it's going to be commonplace and the labels will be jostling with other release routes (retailers, gig promoters, radio stations) at the end of the recording process to be involved, rather than controlling from the front.