Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

[Carcass]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Imagine something completely unlike Depeche Mode's new single and you'll be some of the way there.

[evilC]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Furtho wrote:

What on earth, for example, is a "mid-90s continental disco-goth ballad"?

I think he might mean the atrocity that so-called 'EBM' has become: Trance in minor chords for deluded Goths to wave their glowsticks around to.

[linus]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

That's pretty much it Clive, it's the kind of music you hear in stretches at clubs that play a grabbag ranging from good early goth, darkwave and synth.

At the good end of that spectrum you have 90s continental groups like Wolfsheim or Covenant, who did do some pretty good singles that fill the dance floor like Find You're Here or Dead Stars. The bad end had gotten progressively more crowded last decade, I can't put forth any names because I never bothered to find out who did those pieces heard in clubs.

[evilC]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

linus wrote:

At the good end of that spectrum you have 90s continental groups like Wolfsheim or Covenant...

Wow! That's the good end???

A couple of years back, I would have said "Here - try some Patenbrigade: Wolff". However, they seem to have become progressively more part of that same scene, as those endless remixes bear witness. However, they did release the really rather good 'Laut' (aka '12.1.21.20') which, being quite different from that particular 'mainstream', briefly gave me hope that they were going to make more stuff like that. Sadly, no. They're still better users of samples than most such bands, though.

[linus]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Yes indeed Clive, I wouldn't go out and actually buy Covenant or Wolfsheim CDs, but those two hits were good club anthems as far as that genre was concerned, though my knowledge of it is limited to the occasional forrays into the clubs that played the stuff.

I'll look up the Patenbrigade, thanks for the rec.

[Mumpo]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Avert your eyes. I started to write about Sounds of the Universe in a chatty, off-the-cuff kind of way, and before I knew it... it was ten past one and I've sailed embarrassingly close to writing a proper review. God knows why.

Sounds of the Universe

It's a fitful album, and rather too often, too subdued; but brilliance is there, though it might not be quick to reveal itself. There are faults that run through many songs - verses bring the promise of crescendos that choruses fail to deliver, the guitar parts are often unsympathetic to the cooing of the analogue synths, and there are the usual quotas of excrutiating lyrical cliches courtesy of Martin's obsessive desire to rhyme every couplet. And although spiritual themes are one of his stock-in trades, there's a mystical streak running through his lyrics this time around, which is vaguely expressed whenever it crops up and doesn't sit well with his accounts of firmly human tribulations.

In general, the 'mature' vein of the band's other two post-millennial albums continues largely unabated - a grimy, swampy, mid-paced tempo predominates, and there's little of the exuberance of their 80's offerings. Opener In Chains, despite boasting a superb Radiophonic-evoking precursive fanfare that sounds like a Dalek control centre being coaxed to the point of orgasm, is up-front evidence of this; it's the kind of song that the band usually choose to close their albums, on a slightly lacklustre, pointlessly wistful note. It would, in fact, have been better swapped with the last song on Sounds of the Universe, Corrupt, which shows Martin Gore in his lyrical element, concocting some deliciously perverse lines over a very Mode-esque shuffel beat.

In between, it has to be said that the quality varies wildly. Fragile Tension is perhaps the most insubstantial track the band have ever produced, a real waft of thin air that has no substance lyrically or musically, and which even Dave Gahan's desperate over-emoting cannot rescue. Producer Ben Hillier fashions a marvellously raucous tribal backbeat for Hole to Feed, but it's not developed to its potential and Gahan seems content to growl rather half-heartedly over the skeleton of a much better song. The most bizarre offering is Peace, which performs gymnastics in search of a decent hook but can't live up to the bubbling morass of electronic sounds underpinning it, which impressively reflect the icy peak of Mount Kraftwerk. Oh, and there's Miles Away, which also clunks away in earnest, but leaves you wondering why Gahan decided to visit his Elvis impersonation upon us across the repetitive peal of a snarling Alsatian humping a rusty lawnmower.

But hey, that's the negatives largely out of the way. In general, the songs I've got the softest spots for are the ones that don't try too hard to be noticed. In this respect, Perfect and In Sympathy are wonderful - they both start underwhelmingly but build impressively, catching you unawares; there comes a point a couple of minutes into each where something clicks and you realise that the effortlessly catchy, simply constructed melodies of the kind that the band used to knock out with casual abandon have almost passed you by. Both songs are very uncluttered - one might almost say lightweight, but this works to their advantage, and ultimately, the subject matter of both is nuanced and affecting. Jezebel is a classic torch ballad, Martin's only lead vocal on the album, and a skilfully crooned number that somewhat delightfully concludes with the guitar riff to the Stones' Satisfaction played, or so it sounds, on a Stylophone. Then there's Come Back, which solves the conundrum of the underwhelming chorus by not really having one, relying instead on a legion of apparrently steam-powered vintage synthesizers to deliver a continuous salvo of disorientating noise-bursts. But if I had to choose a favourite, right now I'd go for Little Soul, a slinky, sinister track sung by Dave and Martin in unison which conjours up the disturbing image of them both exacting an indelicate form of emotional torture on a hapless and helpless victim. The image is reinforced by the repeated sound of what could easily be a piece of heavy piping being drawn across a large radiator.

So, in brief, don't expect to be swept off your feet by Sounds of the Universe. Rather, it will seduce you in unexpected ways; and though some will be charmless and fairly clumsy, before you know it, you'll be touched in ways you never imagined.

[Mumpo]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

What I would like the next two singles to be:

Perfect
Come Back

What we'll probably get:

Peace (the song is so over-produced, I can't believe they didn't have it slated as a single even as it was being recorded)
Hole to Feed

[jason voorhees]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Wrong is the Shit.

That's a nasty track.

[Mumpo]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Mumpo wrote:

What I would like the next two singles to be:

Perfect
Come Back

What we'll probably get:

Peace (the song is so over-produced, I can't believe they didn't have it slated as a single even as it was being recorded)
Hole to Feed

Ha ha ha ha ha!

[Carcass]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

An interview with the chaps on The Quietus today.

[MsD]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

Fine interview.

I'm just going to pick you up on one thing, Gary Numan is NOT from Essex, he might live there now but I assure you he was living in Wraysbury (nr Staines) with his mum and dad when he started.

He often used to stay round my place when he was in Tubeway Army and bring us tins of beans out of his mum's or his nan's cupboard, can't remember which. I'm not joking.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

The radio ads for the Kerplunk-sleeved new Mode album are cracking me up.

They have Dave Gahan's multi-tracked voice going "WRONG!!!", then some announcer says "Sounds Of The Universe...", then Dave Gahan goes "WRONG!!!" again, then the announcer says "the new album by Depeche Mode...", then Gahan goes "WRONG!!!", then the announcer says "Out now...", then Gahan goes "WRONG!!!"

I'm sure it's intended to sound portentous rather than comical, but it just reminds me of the "ERR-ERR!" on Family Fortunes, or "WACK-WACK OOPS!" on the old Dave Lee Travis show.

[Carcass]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

MsD: Cripes. God knows how many times I've written that . . .

[Sits]

Depeche Mode OTF Mixtape

I was looking round for a Depeche Mode thread, and having read this one for the first time today, thought it was as good a place as any. It also presents my first and probably only opportunity to follow a post from Carcass.

This is prompted by my recent purchase of the Singles - 81-98 3 CD set, which represents a long overdue filling of a lot of gaps.

I think it started seeing New Life on TOTP and thinking how great it was, and buying the 7". Loved it, loved the B-side Shout almost as much and got very interested. Went back and got Dreaming of Me 7" and also enjoyed its B-side Ice Machine.

When I was 16-17 I had this idea that, if you liked an act, you must own ALL their material. With DM it was singles, and it served me very well. Bought Flexipop magazine with a red Flexi disc of Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead and a Fad Gadget song.

When I Just Can't Get Enough came out I remember being concerned about how commercial it was. It's one of those songs which has suffered from its ubiquitousness - football chant, Glee etc. But it's a great song.

And then Vince left; I thought that would be the end, but they release See You, quite possibly my favourite of all. Glorious song, like a fresh start, kicking off a whole new dream run. Kept buying singles until Love in Itself but didn't like People Are People at the time for a number of reasons and just stopped.

I remained conscious of their stuff on the radio but not as an active consumer, until the iPod era when I got the See You - The Meaning of Love - Leave in Silence sequence as downloads. Then about ten years ago Violator having heard so much about it and remembering some of the singles well. Great album.

But until now there have remained many gaps. And there are still loads, considering I can't get past the first CD, the original Singles 81-85 which I just can't stop playing. How did I miss Shake the Disease? Amazing track.

Looking forward to the second and third CDs with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation, knowing only Violator and Barrel of a Gun post-80s and reading the mixed views on later DM. But they hold a special place in my heart, having been my "singles band" during a brief window of time, partnering my "albums band" Japan through the very early 80s.