Vince Clarke: Reluctant Solo Artist

Vince Clarke had no intention of releasing a solo album. That, perhaps, is not a shock when taking into account that the 63-year-old has never put out any music on his own. Since 1980, Clarke has worked entirely in collaboration, starting as an early member of Depeche Mode through to his nearly 40 year tenure as one half of synthpop duo Erasure. And when he played some of the material he had been messing around with during COVID lockdown using his small array of Eurorack modules — self-contained synthesizers that use dials, sliders and patch cords to manipulate their sound rather than using a keyboard — to the folks at his label Mute, he was shocked to find that they loved it.

“They came back to me and said that they would like to make it into a record,” Clarke said. “I mean, it wasn’t the intention. The intention was just to keep busy.”

It’s not difficult to hear what attracted the folks at Mute to the tracks that would eventually make up Songs of Silence. Restricting himself to setting each piece in a single key and only creating sounds with Eurorack, Clarke developed a series of mood pieces with each one glowing from within as if energized by a core of molten rock or radioactive material. And he augments his experiments perfectly with the addition of some cello, vocals and, on “Blackleg,” a moving sample of a recording of a mid-19th century folk song. To call it ambient would be a disservice to the energy and discord that defines many of these songs.

Ahead of his first ever solo performance this coming Friday November 17th at LSE, London, Clarke spoke with Paste from his home in New York City. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Paste: Was it only during the pandemic that you started messing around with Eurorack or is that something that had been part of your arsenal before?

Vince Clarke: I had the Eurorack stuff for a while, but never really delved into it. I never really explored it properly. This was kind of an excuse to do that. I spent a lot of time watching YouTube tutorials of various modules, which I love. I love watching tutorials. I mean, I still don’t really understand the system fully, but that’s when I started to get to grips with it.

How many modules do you think you have at this point? I know you’re a big collector of synths.

Well, I have a big collection of synthesizers, but my Eurorack system is quite modest. Just about two racks of stuff.

You set limitations on the music by making every song center around one note. Does that mean you restricted yourself to the number of modules you were playing with for this tracks?

No, there was no limitation on the modules I was using because, as I say, I was not familiar with all of them. The limitations that I put on making the songs was really more to do with the idea of being able to create a texture or a soundscape without relying on chord changes in the traditional kind of verse / chorus sense. The challenge for me was to really work out how you could make an instrumental interesting because it’s not something I’ve ever really done before.

How did you know when a piece was at its natural conclusion? Was that something that came easily or did that take some trial and error to figure that out?

It definitely took a long time. I would listen to the tracks very, very intensely. Listening to a drone isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. I would start very simply, and record a single tone and then think about it and then work out where in time change should happen. Or where in time the sound should modulate or do something interesting such that my interest was still there in the track. Then I would listen to the draft and go, “Okay, at this stage in the song, I need an event.” It could be something like a snippet of a radio recording or something organic. Then I would add those little events in the track. The whole idea really was to just keep me interested in it. These weren’t songs that were 20 minutes long and I had to cut them down. These are all three minute songs that I had to extend.

I mean, you have kind of trained yourself in that mindset considering all the three-minute pop songs you’ve had a hand in creating.

I think so, yeah. I mean, I can listen to a 20-minute Pink Floyd song, probably and it’s really interesting. But what has been really interesting for me also has been a bit of an education. Ambient music or electronic experimental ambient music has really changed dramatically over the last few years. It’s so much more interesting now and doing so many more interesting things. Obviously using something like the Euro, there are seemingly endless possibilities with sound sculpture.

And the affordability of software as well. Even some of those modules can be fairly inexpensive compared to larger synthesizers. There’s more access for people to start making this music.

That’s definitely true. You don’t necessarily need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds on a massive Eurorack system. You can build it up. You can start with something very modest and then add modules as you go along. I’m not an obsessive buyer of modules. I don’t try to buy the latest and greatest when they come out. What I tend to do is keep my system the same size, and then if there’s a module that I think “Well, I’m not really getting the most out of this” or “I’m not really using it,” I’ll find something that’s more useful or swap it out.

As you were developing these tracks, was it easy to know when it was time to add in something that was more organic like vocals or cello? And how did you decide who to use for those moments?

On the track, “The Lamentations of Jeremiah,” which is the track with the cello, it started off as something completely different. I was watching Blade Runner 2049 and thought to myself, “Maybe I can do Blade Runner 3 downstairs?” So I started messing about with these tones and the track itself sounded quite futuristic or science fiction at the beginning. Then I played the track for my friend Reed Hays who is an amazing cello player, and he played this part over the track and it suddenly became something very different. It wasn’t how I intended it. It started off with something quite cold and machine-like into something much more human and sad. That was a wonderful meeting of ideas.

What can you tell me about the use of the song “Blackleg Miner” on the album? How did that come into you world?

That was many years ago. My friend Martyn Ware from Heaven 17 and I were working on music for an art installation and he gave me this recording of this a cappella folk song and said, “Maybe you can do something with this and make something out of it.” I spent many, many years trying to work out how I could use it because I love the sound and the sentiment behind it. I never could. It just wasn’t coming together. Then with this one track on this album, I thought, “I wonder if this sample will work with what I have here.” And, I kid you not, I didn’t tune it, I didn’t time it. I just stuck the vocal on top of the backing track and it just fit. It was one of those kind of karma moments.

One of the things I love about Songs of Silence is that this is the first time you’ve put your face on the cover of an album. Any time that has happened in the past, your face has been illustrated or manipulated in some fashion. How does it feel to have your face so directly presented like this?

The intention was to present the record in a kind of documentary style. I wanted the images to be real. To show all the lines and the cracks and crannies of age. Some of the images that are on Erasure albums have been, I guess, a little whimsical. I wanted this to be something completely different. I think it helps to add weight or make things seem more important in some way. I was very, very happy to have the album cover to show my age.

The other big moment for you is that you’re going to be playing your first solo show soon. Is that exciting? Daunting?

I’m shitting bricks. We’ve done a lot of work, a lot of preparation and things should work out fine. Onstage, it will be myself and Reed Hays just on our own. It’s going to be super nerve wracking. When working with Andy [Bell, Erasure vocalist], he’s such an amazing front man. When things go wrong, he doesn’t get fazed. He just starts singing a Beatles song or something. I don’t have that luxury with this. Everything needs to work. I’m praying to God, “Please let this work.” It’s very exciting. It’s not really a concert. It’s more of a visual experience with music. It’s not music with visuals. It’s visuals with music. More of a gallery kind of situation. Immersive. The attention will be less what’s going on onstage, so much as to what’s going on around in the venue.

What comes next for you? What’s on the horizon that you can talk about?

Well, if this show goes well in London, then we’ll hopefully do a similar show in New York. After that, I’ve been writing and preparing material for the next Erasure record. I’m pretty far advanced with that. Andy and I will be getting together at the very end of this year and writing songs or completing songs for the next album. There’s always something to do.