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Remix | Remodel: The Vince Clarke Remixes (Cherry Red)
Vince Clarke – Depeche Mode founder member, who went on to greater success with Yazoo and Erasure – has also had a long career remixing other artists, and has compiled 26 of them as Remix | Remodel. We begin with his first ever such venture, in which Happy Mondays’ Wrote For Luck is turned into a tight, punchy floorfiller.
Many of Clarke’s deconstructing/reconstructing assignments are for his immediate peers, including OMD, Soft Cell and Erasure bandmate Andy Bell. He comes full circle with a robust remix of Depeche Mode’s Behind The Wheel and a slicker version of Aftermaths, originally created with that group’s Martin Gore for their VCMG collaboration.
The biggest surprises, though, come when Clarke steps outside the synthpop arena. Two songs by Scottish folk artist James Yorkston are given a beautiful electronic backdrop; Johnny Marr’s Spirit Power & Soul is turned into an electropop belter, and ABAZABA’s cover of Joy Division’s Isolation is taken into brutal, Suicide-like territory. Informative sleeve notes have been written by Richard Evans from the Erasure Information Service.
words DAVID NOBAKHT
