DEPECHE MODE
by Peter Kirn
Left to right: Andrew Fletcher, David Gahan, and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode.
DEPECHE MODE - Exploring Deeper Space on Sounds Of The Universe
Depeche Mode
The opening of Depeche Mode's Sounds of the Universe came, literally, from a dream. Principal songwriter Martin Gore was visited by synths in his sleep, and by the sound that would kick off the band's latest record. Listen to the first track, "In Chains", and with a click and an expanding drone, you'll hear an orchestra of electronic instruments warm to life and rise into tune, as though emerging from a sonic primordial ooze. "I had a dream about the tuning up of the synths, as an orchestra tunes up'," says Gore. "It so happened that 'In Chains' starts in the key of A minor. So we were able to start the beginning of the album with the A440 tuning tone from the Minimoog, and just recorded, gradually tuning a load of synths to that A." Synth lovers, if you have any doubt that this album is a gift to you, listen to this very first noise on the album: "We thought that only real keyboard aficionados would recognize that initial, little click of the Minimoog [powering up], then the A440 going on."
Talk about a dream: Nearly three decades into the life of Depeche Mode, music is flowing freely from the band's imagination. Assembling Sounds of the Universe, as the epic title may suggest, was painstaking in detail and effort. But with fully-formed musical ideas, a finely-tuned studio overseen by returning producer Ben Hillier, and a playground of vintage synths fueled by Gore's eBay habits, the band was free to create one of the most polished albums in recent years.
Keyboardist and co-founder Andrew Fletcher seems amused at the synthesizers appearing in Gore's sleep: "It's a little bit hippie, isn't it? I didn't have a dream about [the album];' he chuckles — but he's every bit as passionate as Gore about the way the album evolved. When Depeche Mode makes records, it's a quite natural process. We don't have meetings and say, it should go in this direction or that direction. What we do have are Marty's demos and Dave's demos, and we just work from there!"
As on 2005's Playing The Angel (see Keyboard, Nov. '05) the finished album is an intricate reworking of tracks that began as demos from Martin Gore and lead singer David Gahan. As on Angel, too, producer Hillier is a driving force in achieving the completed sound. Fletcher says Hillier is "relentless," with a "clear vision of where things wanted to go. But these ingredients find a new warmth and grit, and a new sense of space (both outer and sonic) that helps Sounds of the Universe to answer even more fully the ambitions of the last album. Songs flowed so copiously, in fact, that the band chose to cut tracks to pare down the album. We spoke to Gore, Fletcher, and Hillier to find out how the musical universe of Depeche Mode has expanded.
Martin, you've talked about this album as having a "spiritual" dimension that's new. Can you describe what you mean?
Martin Gore: I think there are various themes on the record. There are moments where it does go off into some spiritual realm. Two of the songs, I wrote back-to-back: "Peace" followed by "Little Soul". They were, for me, quite spiritual sounding. Although they sound nothing like it, it almost felt a little bit like something from [Stevie Wonder's] Innervisions. There's something spiritual in that sense to them. It might seem really weird to be talking about Stevie Wonder. There's nothing that we ever do that really sounds like somebody else directly. I think it's in my warped head, there's something Stevie Wonder-like about "Little Soul," like there's something Marvin Gaye-like about "In Chains." It's something in the passion you feel from them.
What was the process like as you came into the studio?
MG: The songs were already written and demoed before we got together in the studio. So, versions existed that showed the songs in a certain light. It was just a question of whether we wanted to continue down that path, and just make that version better, or take them off on tangents. We usually spend the first few weeks of an album deciding what we like about the demos and trying out different approaches.
Andrew Fletcher: The great thing is, we don't waste time writing in the studio. The whole process in the studio is to get the best possible vibe and atmosphere for the song. We did four sessions, two in New York, two in Santa Barbara ... we had about 22 songs when we went in the studio. We'd set up in the studio room, not the control room. We'd work on a song for two to three days, stop, move on to another song, then go back [to previous ones] three, four, maybe five times.
Martin, how did you assemble your demos?
MG: I think one of the reasons why I was so prolific writing for this record was that I was doing it all on a laptop. The only time I did anything external to the laptop was when I recorded a vocal or played guitar. That's just so much quicker, to work that way. There's no plugging anything in; it's just all there in front of you. I found it quite inspiring, because I'd never worked that way before.
1: Seeburg Select-A-Rhythm. 2: Boss DR-55. 3: Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-2L. 4: Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-1. 5: Roland TR-66 Rhythm Arranger. 6: Roland TR-330. 7: Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm. 8: Roland TB-303 Bassline. 9: Sequential Circuits Drumtraks. 10: E-mu Drumulator. 11: Korg KR-55B. Photo by: Ben Hillier
What software did you use for this?
MG: [Apple] Logic, because I find it very simple. Everybody else runs [Digidesign] Pro Tools and Ableton Live. I was really into all this virtual stuff. I literally used to go onto kvraudio.com daily - I think I'm a bit OCD - to see what new soft synth had been released that day, just to check it out. So that was for the recording of the demos. That compulsion moved to real instruments for the recording of the record.
How did you translate these demos to the final version?
Ben Hillier: I think Martin owns pretty much every soft synth in the world! The technique for each song would be first, to get Martin's track - we'd usually end up with it in Ableton because it was much easier to change pitch and tempo. Then we could move it around until we got the key and the speed right for how we wanted to finish the song and how it would fit Dave's vocal best. So we'd start with this finished song, pull it apart, change different parts, then build it back up again. We got to the point where we could do that very easily; it got very free-flowing. Quite often we'd end up with a lot of the lines Martin had programmed during his demos, but reworked on new synths or cut across several different synths.