Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott have announced details of a new album and shared a moving single, ‘Still’.

The duo will release their fifth studio album ‘N.K-Pop’ on EMI on September 30.

The pair have shared the first taster from the record with the track ‘Still’, which aims to “raise awareness for folk who have lost a child, whether by miscarriage, stillbirth or in infancy”. You can listen to the song below.

“I wanted to write a song for folk who have lost a child, whether by miscarriage, stillbirth or in infancy,” Heaton said in a statement.

“It’s a common occurrence and, for every one story you may hear, there are 20 or 30 left untold. Whilst totally understandable we, together with the stillbirth charity Sands, want to direct people to talking. Many only feel able to talk to their partner about the loss, but talking to someone equally distressed can be suffocating.”

He continued: “It has to be good to talk to people outside, because otherwise that loss can overwhelm you. I can’t say that’s wrong, because grief has strange ways of shaping and defining you. As a song, Still had to be quiet, meditative, and simple in it’s arrangement, to hopefully reflect and understand those emotions.”

The full tracklisting for ‘N.K-Pop’ is:

1. ‘The Good Times’
2. ‘Too Much For One (Not Enough For Two)’
3. ‘Who Built The Pyramids’
4. ‘I Drove Her Away With My Tears’
5. ‘When The World Would Actually Listen’
6. ‘Still’
7. ‘I Ain’t Going Nowhere This Year’
8. ‘Sunny Side Up’
9. ‘Baby It’s Cold Inside’
10. ‘New Fella’
11. ‘My Mother’s Womb’
12. ‘His Master’s Game’

The duo are also due to headline two big stadium shows this weekend with The Proclaimers and The Lathums at St Helens’ Totally Wicked Stadium tomorrow (July 22) and Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster on Saturday (July 22). Tickets for the shows are available here.

Earlier this year, Heaton spoke to NME about how he and Abbott played a number of free gigs for NHS staff as a thank you for their efforts throughout the pandemic.

“I did it for the nurses and we did one for care workers and they were mad,” he recalled. “For the people who came, particularly the care workers in Sheffield, it just had this massive release. I was actually quite frightened on stage!”

Saying that it would be “great” for more UK artists to pay tribute to the NHS and honour them – just as Liam Gallagher and Manic Street Preachers did last year – Heaton then went on to claim that the Conservative Party’s efforts for privatisation would be better placed elsewhere.

“I’m perhaps a little bit extreme,” he went on. “I’ve tried to get my back catalogue nationalised, I’ve written to Business Secretary Greg Clarke. There are a few things worth nationalising and only one thing worth privatising: the Royal Family. If it’s such a good business model, then have it. Sell it off to the Japanese or Saudis or whatever.

“You know what these capitalists do when they take over? They cut off all the unwanted staff and just leave one there…”