Songs Of Silence
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2023 2:23 pm
VINCE CLARKE - SONGS OF SILENCE - (CD ALBUM)
- PRE-ORDER [2023-11-17]
5400863142056
Vince Clarke - Songs of Silence - (CD Album)
Vince Clarke presents, unbelievably, his first ever solo album, Songs of Silence.
As the album title suggests, Songs of Silence is a lyric-less, instrumental album, and is hugely evocative for that. Unlike anything you’ve previously heard from Vince Clarke, as an artisan of dynamic electropop, (Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yazoo), Songs of Silence has about it a more sober ambient electronic beauty, its unique characteristics put it in a category of its own.
For the creation of the record Vince set himself two rules – first that the sounds he himself generated for the album would come solely from Eurorack (a modular synthesizer format introduced in the mid-90s) and secondly that each track would be based around one note, maintaining a single key throughout. The resultant pieces, with the Eurorack sound clay then manipulated on Logic Pro, amount to wordless narratives, in which a sense of synth-generated, cosmic remoteness is often jolted by stark interventions, reminders of the human hand at work amid this machinery.
This album sees Vince Clarke not content to rest on his considerable pop legacy, and instead open up for himself, and for the rest of us, exciting new electronic vistas in which the permutations and possibilities are limitless.
The CD format comes in a card eco pack.
"Vince Clarke - Songs of Silence" is out Friday, 17th November 2023 on Mute
Tracklisting
Cathedral
White Rabbit
Passage
Imminent
Red Planet
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
Mitosis
Blackleg
Scarper
Last Transmission
Format: CD Album (card eco pack)
Barcode: 5400863142056
Catalogue Number: CDSTUMM500
Label: Mute
Release Date: Friday, 17th November 2023
Vinyl
Tracklisting
A1. Cathedral
A2. White Rabbit
A3. Passage
A4. Imminent
A5. Red Planet
B1. The Lamentations of Jeremiah
B2. Mitosis
B3. Blackleg
B4. Scarper
B5. Last Transmission
Format: LP Vinyl Album (heavyweight)
Barcode: 5400863142049
Catalogue Number: STUMM500
Label: Mute
Release Date: Friday, 17th November 2023
https://www.lexermusic.com/vince-clarke
VINCE CLARKE: INTRODUCING 'SONGS OF SILENCE' THE FIRST EVER SOLO ALBUM FROM VINCE CLARKE
Yep, you read that right, on November 17th Vince Clarke will be releasing his first ever solo album, it's called 'Songs of Silence' and it is utterly unlike anything he has released before.
Back when the world was in the grip of lockdown and we all found new ways of spending the time that was unexpectedly available to us, Vince set himself the task of experimenting with the Eurorack system in his studio. As a result, and entirely for his own amusement, he found himself making drones within the two rules he set for himself for the project: firstly, that the sounds he generated for the album would come solely from Eurorack; and secondly, that each track would be based around one note and would maintain a single key throughout. "I could have gone on forever, I could have not stopped,” explains Vince in the press release for 'Songs of Silence', “I was enjoying the process so much and wasn’t thinking about anyone else hearing it. But hearing it develop in my studio, in my head, learning new tricks – that’s been the best thing.”
In place of the upbeat electronic pop sounds we associate with Vince 'Songs of Silence' is an album of drone music, each track a sombre ambient soundtrack to an imaginary movie overlaid with sonic sparkles and - for me at least - it's extraordinarily beautiful and utterly drenched in emotion. Here's the tracklisting, please read on for more information about CD and vinyl pre-orders...
For those of you who have followed the Mute label for a while I should also mention that, to celebrate Vince's long-standing relationship with the label, 'Songs of Silence' will be released under catalogue number STUMM500.
