Vince Clarke has built some of the best synth-pop hooks known to man — Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure, your uncle’s nostalgic playlist. But his new solo record Songs of Silence wasn’t even meant to exist. “I had no intention of creating an album,” he shrugs. “I was just doing sound experiments in my studio for my own sanity.”
Lucky for us and his poor cat, who apparently can’t stand his acoustic guitar. “If I pull out my acoustic guitar he just leaves,” Clarke laughs. “He knows what he likes.”
What Clarke likes, it turns out, is ambient music. Lots of it. “I was watching Blade Runner 2 for the fifth time and I thought, ‘I could do Blade Runner 3.’ So I went into the studio and made this kind of soundscape.” Then he sent it to his pal Reed Hayes, who threw some human cello on it. “Suddenly it went from being very synthetic to something very human.” Human, but still sad. “It’s quite sad,” Clarke admits. “It’s almost like therapy.”
When the pandemic hit, ambient music quietly became the new black. Clarke found himself sucked into it. “20 years ago, if you’d said ambient music, I’d have said waves on a beach or singing whales,” he says. “But now it’s beyond that. The technology’s there to experiment. It’s limitless.”
So much so that he didn’t even bother with lyrics — save for “Blackleg Minor,” a 19th-century British union song about scabs that basically fell into place like karma. “I didn’t tune it, didn’t time stretch it, it just sat there perfectly,” he says. The old fight against mining bosses makes a timely cameo, but don’t expect Clarke to shout solidarity at the barricades: “It’s not a political statement from my perspective. More of a historical observation.”
Clarke says the best part wasn’t the release but the process. He made up all the song titles in 30 minutes, something he used to fob off on Erasure’s Andy Bell. “I’ve never been that interested, to be honest.”
Speaking of Erasure: they’re on deck. “I’ve got all my demos prepped for the next Erasure record,” Clarke says, promising he and Andy will hit the studio early next year. Will the ambient sneak in? “Invariably there always is bleed-over,” he smirks. “If I learn a trick that works, it ends up on an Erasure record.”
He’s not sure about collaborating with anyone on the ambient side, but if Philip Glass rings, he’ll probably pick up. Until then, it’s just Vince and the cat, zoning out to endless drone — and leaving the guitars in the case.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
