NME reports on the progress of U2’s next album:

“We did some recording in Morocco last year[, said Bono. “All the band went to an amazing religious music festival in Fez with some incredible sufi singers. It was a real humbling thing for a punk rock shouter, listening to these people who just close their eyes for 40 minutes and sing the most sophisticated melodies.”

He added: “We got this little riad, a small hotel with a courtyard in the middle and set up the band there, with a square of sky over our head. The two great catalysts of U2’s recording life, [producers] Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, joined us. We’d record during the day and then disappear into windy streets of the medina at night. It was an inspiring experience and a drummer’s paradise.”

The singer said the band are now working through those demos during the French sessions and that while the new record is not world music, he promised fans would “feel the difference”.