Want to work with Vince Clarke, well here´s your chance
Erasure’s Vince Clarke has posted a new instrumental called “Symphony” on his official website and is asking fans to download the track and make their own music video for it. That’s right, if you ever wanted to link up with Vince Clarke this is your moment of total glory! Clarke is not fusy about what the video for the 4:35: song should be like: it could be an animation, a collection of stills, maybe an epic science fiction classic in the style of “Star Wars”, …
If you want to participate download the track from Clarke’s official website. The track will remain up until the end of October and anybody wanting to make a video should then post it to YouTube and send him a link. The best ones will be showcased sometime after October 31. Have fun!
Vince remixes Goldfrapp
“Believer”, the new single from Goldfrapp, has been released by Mute (you can order it here at iTunes). Included on the single is a remix by synthPop legend Vince Clarke. “Believer” is the third sngle taken from Goldfrapp’s “Head First” album. The remix sounds rather retro, even reminding us of somewhat of the last Yazoo album “You and Me Both”. You can check for yourself after the jump!
Other remixes have been delivered by Subway, Joris Voorn and Davide Rossi.
No hopes for a new Yazoo album
Alison Moyet has drowned all hope to see both her and Vince Clarcke back in the studio anytime soon. Moyet, who is working on an electronic project, got a question from a fan who asked whether Clarke would be working with her on the new material.
She said this: “I think the notion for me to work with Vince was a good one. We intended while touring to see what we might come up with but the reality of a tour that is brief and unlikely to be repeated meant the focus stayed on the job in hand. Added to which, Vince had acquired some new animation software that occupied his spare time and I made the most of seeing places I had not explored on earlier outings. The fact that we live in different continents and he was soon to be writing for the next Erasure album meant that the opportunity escaped us and normal lives resumed. It was a nice idea but the moment passed. We have not talked about finding time for it since.”
Vince Clarke & Martin Gore are working on a techno-ish track called Zaat.
Vince Clarke & Martin Gore are working on a techno-ish track called Zaat.
No word on how soon you’ll be able to here this reunion of early Depeche Mode members. Clarke’s keeping busy working on a children’s record for Rounder Records, the latest Erasure album and a possible collaboration with Amanda effin’ Palmer.
Clarke wrote most of the songs for the band’s 1981 debut “Speak & Spell”, before departing to form the synthpop duo Yazoo with Alison Moyet and later, the duo Erasure with Andy Bell.
During the touring and promotion for “Speak & Spell”, Clarke began privately to voice his discomfort at the direction the band were taking. In November 1981 Clarke publicly announced that he was leaving Depeche Mode. When asked about his departure from Depeche Mode in the VH1 Behind the Music television series he added: “We were pretty young and very lucky, and things had happened very quickly for us and I don’t think we were really mature to handle the situation”.
Initial talk of Clarke continuing to write material for the group ultimately amounted to nothing (Clarke offered the remaining members of Depeche Mode the track “Only You”, but they declined. It went on to become a UK top ten hit for Yazoo).Gore, who had written “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and the instrumental “Big Muff” for Speak & Spell, was forced to become the band’s new songwriter.
Vince and his Analogues Monologues
Synth-pop legend Vince Clarke has launched a new series of mini-documentaries entitled The Analogue Monologues in which he talks about some of his favorite analog gear. The first episode is up on his site and discusses the wonderful Sequential Circuits Pro One.
Vince Clarke remixes Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp’s next single, “Believer” will feature a remix by Vince Clarke.
A string of live dates in England will follow in November:
November 9 – Bristol, O2 Academy
November 11 – London, Hammersmith Apollo
November 13 – Brighton, Dome
November 14 – Birmingham, O2 Academy
November 16 – Leeds, O2 Academy
November 17 – Manchester, Academy
November 19 – Glasgow, O2 Academy
November 20 – Newcastle, O2 Academy
Vince and the Fairlight computer
Vince, Erasure fame, showing off the Fairlight Computer. This taken from a free tape that came with UK magazine, ‘Electronic Sound Maker and Computer Music’, from the mid 1980s. Nice track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz08V5slZ1Y&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrRsAOCG32s&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK-iS_Fwg8Q&feature=player_embedded
Vince Clarke, Erasure, taken from his analogue synth sample CD
Rare stuff from Vince Clarke at Soundcloud
If your into electronic music this should interest you.
“One Day” (Extension) – Vince Clarke/Paul Quinn by Vince Clarke Rarities
Note: The songs are available to download so maybe you should.
Here is for example one of my old favorites, I do actually still have it on a vinyl single 
Lots of obscure Vince Clarke tracks in the Vince Clark Rarities Soundcloud account, including rare tracks from Depeche Mode, Yaz/Yazoo & Erasure. Not sure if this is official or not – so Vince Clarke fans may want to check this out sooner. rather than later.
Electric Independence feat Vince Clarke
Vince Clarke is a man synonymous with synth pop and a legend in the history of electronic music. He’s famous for founding three of the most popular and lasting musical acts in history: Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure. But his distinct sonic output depends upon another feat: he has spent the last 30 years amassing one of the world’s most impressive collections of rare, ‘holy grail’ analogue synthesizers.
In 2004, Clarke left England for the unsynthesized woods of Maine, where he constructed a temple for these monolithic machines he calls ‘The Cabin,”. and began branching out into (gasp!) software synths too. Recently Motherboard made a pilgrimage to Clarke’s purpose-built digital/analogue studio to meet the musical titan, hear the story of his musical journey, learn how to make the perfect pop song, and get a little demonstration of one of his signature moves: building a drum pattern from a wall of modular synths. To Clarke, music is still magic even now, an alchemy in which he gets to make “something from nothing.
DATAMASKIN
