Sade Was The First Act To Record In Brad Pitt And Damien Quintard’s Relaunched Miraval Studios
For the past year, Brad Pitt and producer Damien Quintard have been spearheading a restoration of the French recording institution Studio Miraval under the name Miraval Studios. The recording studio, which is located in the Château de Miraval, had been home to sessions by Pink Floyd, AC/DC, the Cure, Sting, the Cranberries, and many more before petering off the mid-2000s. The studio is the subject of a new Billboard cover story and in it, Pitt reveals that Sade were the first act to utilize the relaunched space, which has been operating since the summer.
“Our first act to come in, who’s just royalty, was Sade,” Pitt said. “It’s meaningful for us because she recorded her first and her third album here under Jacques Loussier, so to open it up that way it was really special. Again, she’s just royalty.” (It was in fact Sade’s second and third albums, 1985’s Promise and 1988’s Stronger Than Pride, that were partially recorded at Miraval.)
But Sade have been sporadically at work on a new album, the follow-up to 2010’s Solider Of Love, and it seems like work continues on that. Sade’s last single was 2018’s “The Big Unknown,” which was on the soundtrack for Steve McQueen’s film Widows.