Many, including me, have written a lot of Violator based articles in the last couple of weeks and whilst it's good to read about the greatest album of all time ever by anyone, sometimes it's better to actually listen to the music. Luckily for you, top notch fan site Home (www.depeche-mode.com) has put together a tribute mix which you can listen to below. Compiled by Glen of Breathing In Fumes fame, the mix is a superb selection of period interviews, remixes and live tracks. Put down you work and listen to this - you'll love it
Once you've enjoyed that, go and visit Home, sign up to the forum and spend as much time as I do talking about Depeche Mode.
It's clearly a fact that Martin Gore is one of the great songwriters of all time and, despite the odd houses/trousers moment, his lyrics are a treasure trove of darkness, light, beauty and, perhaps, a slight overuse of the notion of being down on one's knees. But, and you can tell by this question that we are currently between Depeche Mode projects and I am starting to run out of things to write about them, what about the songs where Martin doesn't write anything? The ones with no words or, the instrumentals as they are otherwise, correctly known? Well, here's my take on them. As ever, most of this isn't serious so don't worry too much if it looks like I'm talking nonsense.
1981 - 1989: Big Muffs, Small Towns and Fpmips
Back when synthesizers were a new thing and men roamed the streets dressed in kilts, bits of curtains and more make up than seems believable, synth bands thought nothing of popping the odd instrumental on an album. Our Basildon based heroes were no exception and DM's debut Speak & Spell featured, amongst the precision pop of Vince Clarke's tracks, two by Martin Gore, one of which, Big Muff, was presumably named after the guitar effects pedal of the same name. It's a delightful track, all beeps and bleeps and a wonderful lead synth riff that still sounds fresh as a daisy today. The band would play it live too around that time. Only being 6 at the time and having bigger concerns on my mind such as playing football in my garden, I didn't see them live then. Given the size of venues they played, I wonder how Dave managed to walk off stage during Big Muff? Perhaps he hid behind Fletch. Not to be outdone, Vince also produced an instrumental, Any Second Now, which was the b-side to little known and rarely played single Just Can't Get Enough and appeared as Any Second Now on the single and Any Second Now (Altered) on the 12". Both are smashing but the album version Any Second Now (Voices) where Martin sings over the track is the star take. It's also not an instrumental so I don't know why I mentioned it.
Sensing that one day Peter Gordeno would fill his shoes, Vince left in 1981 leaving Martin to write not only the songs with words, but also the instrumentals. He started off superbly with the much loved Oberkorn (It's A Small Town) which was the b-side to the gothic masterpiece single The Meaning Of Love. Written about a small town the band passed through in Luxembourg, Oberkorn is a classic early 80's synth pioneer instrumental that really has stood the test of time. I still love it and the version on the 12" Oberkorn (It's A Small Town) (Development Mix) is beautiful. The band's next single, Leave In Silence, was also backed by an instrumental called Excerpt From: My Secret Garden which is a fast paced and slightly odd version of the album track on A Broken Frame. The 12" added a remix of the instrumental take on a track no-one had yet heard called, and see if you can work out how they managed to come up with such a clever title, Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden. Both are ok but nothing special. What is worth noting is that the b-side on the 7" can be played at either 45rpm or 33rpm. Two tracks for the price of one. The odd thing about A Broken Frame is that all the singles were released before the album came out, perhsps because the quality of the remaining album tracks was such that no other tracks were suitable for single release. What the album did feature though was an instrumental, the oddly moving Nothing To Fear, another track I still love to this day. Both Oberkorn and Nothing To Fear featured on the tours of the time, with the former opening shows and the latter popping up halfway through the set to allow Dave to have a sit down and a rest from his remarkable dance moves of the era. A live version of Nothing To Fear also appeared on the limited edition 12" of Everything Counts in 1983.
By this point, the little missed and rarely discussed Alan Wilder had joined the band and he wasted no time in trying to get himself sacked by joining up with Martin and writing the horrific The Great Outdoors which somehow appeared as the b-side to Get The Balance Right. Sounding like the soundtrack to a nightmare an elf would have, the track is so bad that I urge you to listen to it. Play it then straight after play In Your Room then try and convince yourself that those are two tracks by the same band. The Construction Time Again period then gave instrumentals a swerve, preferring to focus on lyrics about insincerity in Korea and the likes, no doubt still in shock after the whole The Great Outdoors debacle.
At this point, and knowing how..erm...keen some of are on DM, I'd better say that I'm not going to comment on 12" remixes that don't feature vocals. Just thought I'd point that out.
Anyway, bursting into the Some Great Reward era, we again find a startling lack of instrumentals other than the third track on the standard Master And Servant 12" which is, of course, Master And Servant (Voxless) so called because there are no vocals on it. So Depeche Mode basically invented karaoke - who knew?
Before you know it, we find ourselves in 1986 where the previously unfashionable instrumental starts to make more of a regular appearance. Christmas Island is the first to pop up, appearing as the b-side to A Question Of Lust and on the 12" as an Extended Remix. It's a gloom laden, metal bashing joy, featuring sampled missile sounds, all in tribute to the titular island where the UK carried out nuclear tests during Operation Grapple in the late 1950's. It's also written by both Martin and Alan, with Alan having served his three year instrumental ban post The Great Outdoors. The 12" of A Question Of Lust also features another Depeche Mode Karaoke Klassic, the actually quite fun to sing along to It Doesn't Matter Two (Instrumental).
But wait! What's that you say? Not one, not even two, but THREE instrumentals on the one release? Surely not? But yes, yes it is indeed the case, as with the release of Strangelove, the band literally went instru-mental. First up, the glorious Pimpf appeared as the b-side. As can be heard from the video below, it's a masterpeice and rightly opened all the Music For The Masses tour shows, bringing a real sense of drama to proceedings. It also featured on the album which is a bit annoying really as b-sides, no matter how good, shouldn't feature on albums, They have things called album tracks for that. Anyhow, in their guise as fearless pioneers of the remix, Depeche then gave us a remix of Pimpf on the 12" version of Strangelove, the perplexing Fpmip which, as the name might suggest, reverses the track slightly by putting the "ohh-ees" at the start before playing the rest of Pimpf as it stands. Odd and really only one for completists. Rather excellently though, the limited edition 12" and cd single also featured Agent Orange which is one of the band's finest instrumental moments. Beautifully melodic and, in places, almost tearjerking, it's a superb track. As I mentioned, Pimpf also features on the album as the last track, but there is also another instrumental, Mission Impossible (Interlude) which pops up long after Pimpf ends. It's there to wake you up if you fall asleep having listened to the album.
Finally, the 1980's left us with two final instrumentals, both of appeared as b-sides to the no-one-is-sure-what-countries-actually-released-it-as-a-single single Little 15. The 7 inch gave us the wonderful Stjarna which is another trademark Gore melodic marvel and the 12" added a cover version with Alan tinkling the ivories to Beethoven's Sonata No 14 in C Minor "Moonlight Sonata." If you're going to do a cover version, you may as well do a classical music one I guess.
1990 - 2000: Kaleid-ing Headstar On
There are, of course, fewer Depeche Mode albums post 1990 than there were before that, but that doesn't mean the drop in number of songs they released didn't stop them putting out tracks they couldn't be bothered writing words for. Oh no. Firstly, godlike behemoth and greatest thing ever done by anyone ((c) me) Enjoy The Silence kicked off the acid house fueled raving 90's with two b-sides that are sedate, piano led affairs - Memphisto (b-side on the 7" and limited 12" and cd) and Sibeling (available on the standard 12" and cd). They are both great tracks and really rather lovely. Depeche then caught up with the acid house scene that some say they were pioneers of with the squelchy bassed glory of Kaleid, the track which merged with Crucified, more of which below, to kick off the World Violation gigs. Kaleid is bloody marvellous and still sounds good today. The standard version appears on the 7", cassette single and limited cd single and the remixed versions Remix (standard cd single and limited 12") and When Worlds Mix (limited cd single and standard 12") are not to be missed.
The underwhelming and much hated by the fanbase album Violator, also features a couple of instrumentals, albeit uncredited ones. As mentioned above, the first of these is Crucified (a.ka. Interlude No.2 ) which I'm calling an instrumental even though it probably isn't. The second is Interlude No. 3 which pops up between Blue Dress and Clean sounding like a piece of electronic music recorded in a wilderness somewhere.
Songs Of Faith And Devotion was basically instrumental free bar Interlude No.4 which pops up with a bit of the Swamp Mix of I Feel You between Get Right With Me and Rush. Actually, I'm not sure that even counts as an instrumental as it features Martin's voice. More of that in the forthcoming "DEPECHE MODE - I'M AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL NOW: THE INTERLUDES" blog post.
Talking of barrels (See what I did there?), the band's Ultra campaign started with a single called Barrel Of A Gun and, rather helpfully thematically for this blog, its b-side is an instrumental. The superb Painkiller is a genuinely brilliant track, all muscular drums and pounding rhythms. It features on the standard cd single and limited edition 12" where the single version and the ace Plastikman Mix both appear on the a-side. The Plastikman Mix also pops up on the limited cd single. Dizzy with the joy of instrumentals, the band featured another as the b-side of the next single It's No Good. Unfortunately, whereas Painkiller is great, Slowblow is slow and to borrow a phrase from my American chums, blows. It's fairly pointless in its standard form and in the form of the Darren Price Mix on the cd single. Neither Home nor Useless had b-sides as such, so the remaining instrumentals of the period were left for the Ultra album itself. This is the precise moment in time when Depeche thought it was a good plan to put little link tracks on the albums, an idea I still can't fathom. On Ultra, we have Uselink which is just before Useless and actually works pretty well and Jazz Thieves which is a waste of vinyl. There's a hidden wake up call at the end too in the guise of Junior Painkiller.
The decade rounded off with Singles 86-98 and lead single from the compilation Only When I Lose Myself had an instrumental b-side, the decent but not earth shattering Headstar. The Single version is the best with the Luke Slater Remix not really adding anything to the original. Interestingly,the XLCD features a remix of Painkiller by DJ Shadow called Kill The Pain Mix - DJ Shadow vs Depeche Mode which is great.
2000 - current date: Spacewalking Tigers and other nonsense
It's fair to say that recent Depeche Mode instrumentals have either been pretty crap or restricted to near pointless album fillers. 2001's Dream On, for example, was backed by the simply awful Easy Tiger, a track that gives The Great Outdoors a good name. Worse however, was the Bertrand Burgalat & A.S. Dragon Version which polluted the Dream On cd single. It honestly sounds like a drunk bunch of children playing musical instruments for the first time. Freelove also had an instrumental b-side Zenstation which is relatively nondescript. The remix, Atom's Stereonerd Remix, doesn't add much to the original at all. Amazingly, the parent album of these singles, the sadly fairly bland Exciter, featured Easy Tiger again (!!) albeit in mercifully shortened form. There is also another instrumental thing called Lovetheme which I can't even really remember.
2005's Playing The Angel campaign had actual songs for b-sides which was great and most welcome, leaving the instrumentals for the album itself. Introspectre is the only one and it's again neither here nor there really. It's certainly better than Easy Tiger if that's any help to you. Similar to Playing The Angel, 2009's underwhelming festival of blandness Sounds Of The Universe saved the instrumentals for the album. The pointless Spacewalker appears at track 9 but that is soon forgotten when a nice plinky plonky short instrumental version of Wrong pops up long after last track Corrupt has ended. On the deluxe boxset disc of tracks that would have actually made the album a lot better, there's an instrumental called Esque which is actually rather nice.
Finally, the superb Delta Machine from 2013 features no instrumental things, nor do any of its three singles. So there.
Usually, I'd finish one of these posts with a conclusion of sorts, bringing everything together in one well crafted soundbite. With these tracks, however, it's not really possible given their diversity. Most of them have some merit (no not you Easy Tiger) but are only really to be enjoyed as part of the overall Depeche experience rather than as some sort of tortuous playlist. Have a listen to them anyway and, like me, pray for more Depeche news soon as I really don't know what to write about next......
In 2013, my prayers for a magazine solely devoted to electronic music were answered when Electronic Sound arrived. Initially a print magazine, the format changed to a quarterly interactive magazine for smartphones and tablets and each edition has been a joy to behold. Electronic Sound covers the full spectrum of electronic music and, if you're a fan of the genre, you really have to check it out.
From April 2015, Electronic Sound is going to be issued monthly. In addition, the Electronic Sound Club has now been set up via Kickstarter (link below) and membership carries many tantalising perks. For example, pledge £35 and you'll get twelve issue plus a limited edition clear vinyl 7" featuring Jack Dangers and ex Kraftwerk electro legend Wolfgang Flur. Pledge £749 and you can get a one off handmade bespoke synthesizer which will be signed by as many electronic musicians as Electronic Sound can muster. There is only one synth of course so be quick.
On 19 March 1990, my idea of
music, my perception of music, in fact, and whilst it sounds over the top to
say so it is true, my whole life changed. I’ve often been accused of placing
too much importance in music and probably rightly so, but Depeche Mode’s Violator
had such a fundamental impact on my life that I can genuinely say that it
changed me and there isn’t a day that has gone by since its release that I
haven’t either listened to it or, at the very least, hummed or sang one of its
nine magical tunes.
This isn’t a review of the album,
as my views on that are fairly well documented. This is more a number of random
thoughts, albeit ones with a shameless bias. I’ll try and keep the life
changing bits to the paragraph above
What’s so special about Violator
though? It is, after all, just another Depeche Mode album. Spiky haired, dress
wearing, Multi Coloured Swap Shop appearing chumps who just couldn’t get enough
until they turned a bit depressing? Pah. The rest of the world always knew what
Britain pretended not to. Depeche Mode were and always have been a big deal.
From 1984, they were playing huge venues in Germany, France and other European
countries. From 1986, they were playing surprisingly huge venues in America,
culminating in 1988’s huge Tour For The Masses which, let’s not forget, led to
them filling the Pasadena Rose Bowl with 65,000 or so devoted (pun intended)
fans. 1985 and 1988 saw the band go behind the Iron Curtain to play gigs which
not only was an extreme rarity for any band at the time, but was also a huge
thing for Eastern European fans of the band, the result of which sees them
viewed as demi Gods in most formerly Eastern European countries even to this
day. All these things bubbled around until Depeche released Violator. Remember,
in their home country, during the globe straddling 1988 Music For The Masses
tour when they filled stadia all over the globe, Depeche Mode were still
playing venues the size of Edinburgh Playhouse or Bradford St George’s Hall.
Violator changed everything.
REACH OUT AND TOUCH FAITH
My first experience of Violator
era was hearing Personal Jesus at my mate’s house on his brother’s cassette
single. I’d got into Depeche through 101 and liked, but didn’t love, Personal
Jesus upon hearing it. The lyrics and a picture I still love of Dave in
crucifix pose with the rest of the band behind him appeared in Smash Hits but
none of that particularly moved me or grabbed me. It wasn’t until January 1990
when I heard Enjoy The Silence on Radio 1 in my mum’s car that the Depeche Mode
thing in me awoke. I’ve overdone this moment in the past on this blog but, at
the risk of repeating myself, let me just say that hearing Enjoy The Silence on
that rainy day in Castle Douglas, a small town in South West Scotland that none
of you will have heard of, did something to me. A switch flipped, something
changed. What was this music? Electronic music and pop music collided. Depeche
Mode produced a song so perfect, arguably their most famous, that anyone who heard it
could not fail to love. For me, in the back of a Fiat Regatta in a small town
no-one had heard of, for the first time, it felt like a musician was speaking
directly to me.
And from that moment, I was
hooked.
There weren’t that many record shops in Dumfries and Galloway. I bought
the cassette single and 12” in Woolworths in Castle Douglas once the single
came out and that was the start of the, some would say, ridiculous Depeche Mode
record collecting that has followed me ever since. Oddly, and this is where it
all gets a but Depeche-y, I bought the extra limited 12” after I bought the
main 12” but before I bought the limited 12” due to the peculiarities of my
home region’s record shops. For the 2 or 3
of you who aren’t DM fans and have wandered here by accident, at the
time it was normal for Depeche to release a 12” and then a further limited
edition 12” full of remixes of the main track. Anyway, for Enjoy The Silence,
they released the standard two 12” singles plus lovely 3” cd singles together
with an extra limited (XL) cd and 12”.I
went to Domino, the record shop on the Whitesands in Dumfries and bought the XL
12” for 99p. On sale at the same time was the cd single, for the same bargain
price of 99p, which I chose not to buy and ended up spending £35 on thanks to
EBay many years later.
Most
of you have forgotten the point of this by now haven’t you?
Anyway,
in a worrying taste of what was to come, I ended up with the limited edition
12” of Enjoy The Silence in the summer of 1990. My family went to Italy on
holiday that year and, as my mum refuses to fly, we went to London by train,
stopping for a couple of nights before continuing our seemingly endless journey
to Livorno later on. That break in London took me to HMV however and there I
bought the beautiful, yellow sleeved with black rose picture 12” Enjoy The
Silence single. I couldn’t listen to it for a fortnight but that didn’t matter. I carried it from London to Italy and back to Castle Douglas, protecting it as if it were a scared text.
It was a perfect work of art. Its songs (three remixes of Enjoy The Silence –
Bass Line, Harmonium, Ricki Tik Tik and the instrumental Memphisto) were like
mysteries to me. What would they sound like? How could a band have different
versions of a song on a record? Why is this cover basically the same as the
other 12” cover but in a different colour? I was inexperienced in all of this,
but thankfully Depeche were there to guide me. To this day there remains
something in the minimalist beauty of Anton Corbijn’s sleeves for the various
Enjoy The Silence releases that can’t fail to give me the shivers. Art and
music colliding perfectly. Enjoy The Silence remains my favourite song/piece of
music by anyone ever and I know for a fact that nothing will ever beat it.
THE
ONE THAT I PREFER
Enjoy
The Silence made such an impression on me that I bought Violator on cassette in
Woolworths in Castle Douglas on the day it came out. I still have the tape now.
The cover is the purest, most beautiful album cover of all time, a red rose on
a jet black background, and the cassette itself, plastic with a jet black
sticker with the words written in the most perfect font on each side,
containing 47 minutes and 2 seconds of the most perfect music ever written,
a triumph. The inner sleeve, with its stark but perfect rendition of the lyrics
with four tiny pictures of the authors of this masterpiece obliquely glancing
at you. This is art as music. I could, and regularly do, go on ad nasuem about
Violator as, to this day, I still can’t muster the words to explain how earth
shatteringly perfect it is. And that’s just from looking at the sleeve. What
about the music?
I’ve
done the whole Violator review thing before so won’t repeat it here. Suffice to
say that every beat, bleep and beep of the album is imprinted on my soul; from
the robotic pop of World In My Eyes, to the swooning majesty of Sweetest
Perfection, to the glam stomp of Personal Jesus, through the heart breakinginly
perfect Halo, to the tear inducing joy of Waiting For The Night, stopping by
the greatest thing ever written-ness of Enjoy The Silence, saying hi to the pop
perfection of Policy Of Truth, looking in on the should-I-be-watching-this
glory of Blue Dress to the best ever album ender of Clean; every single second
of Violator is perfect.
Every
single one. Not one note is wasted, not one hand overplayed. Absolute and utter perfection
I quickly became obsessed with the
album. I played my tape over and over and over again, never letting it out of
my sight save for one misguided weekend when a girl in my class borrowed it and
returned it with the top left corner of the sticker on side two slightly peeled
back. You don’t forget those things. Violator became my guide from 16 year old
to 17 year old and beyond and even now, as a 40 year old, I still play it more
times than most people think is rational but I really don’t care. With this
album I found Depeche Mode. Also, with this album the world found Depeche Mode
and their World Violation tour saw them play venues like Dodgers Stadium and
their Violator era is still viewed by many as a highpoint in electronic music
and rightly so. The planets aligned for Depeche Mode in 1990 and Violator’s
combination of perfect electronics, artistic sleeves and tour films (U2 were
certainly watching) still stands the test of time.
Even
if you have never heard any of it, go and listen to Violator right now. There
are only nine songs but every one of them will touch you and once you love one,
as I did with Enjoy The Silence, you’ll quickly love them all.
Music
is an ever developing, ever flowing thing, but I can honestly say that no album
will ever come close to Violator. And to Martin, Dave, Andy and Alan, I say
thank you for that.
It's not all synthpop you know. I was first belatedly introduced to Nine Inch Nails when I left school in 1992 with Pretty Hate Machine. You all know that album and how it brilliantly fused Depeche Mode's Black Celebration with, well, anger. I went to University in Aberdeen claiming to be a Nine Inch Nails fan and, just after I'd started up there, bought the cassette (ask you parents or cool friends) of new e.p. Broken, expecting another Pretty Hate Machine. It turned out not to be the case but of all Nine Inch Nails hugely impressive catalogue, even against the absolute titan that is The Downward Spiral, Broken still stands out for me and is still my favourite. Electronic music doesn't all have to be clean crisp synths - sometimes it works just as well when it's loud, shouty and basically a noise. Broken was released on cassette, cd and a superb vinyl e.p. with free 7" featuring the two extra tracks discussed below. I still don't have the vinyl, so if you're reading this and want to send me it....
Broken was recorded by Trent Reznor in the aftermath of TVT, the label that released Pretty Hate Machine insisting they wanted a carbon copy follow up. Never one to do what anyone told him to, Reznor set about recording Broken and making it a loud, disorted wall of anger and it remains a wall that stands today. Using the industrial scene as an influence, Reznor somehow manages to mix extreme noise with melody, producing six songs that on the one hand no doubt scared off many expecting Pretty Hate Machine part 2 but on the other enchanted many more people that he or indeed anyone probably though possible. Yes, there's the shock value of the videos and the apparent snuff film Broken designed to accompany the release, but ignore all that and focus on the music.
Opener Pinion is essentially the rage filled cousin of Kraftwerk's Geiger Counter albeit louder and not quite as subtle. It is played frustrating low in volume however, or at least that's the case if you're listening to it on a Walkman (again, ask your Mum and Dad) because when track two, the outrageous and outrageously godlike genius marvelousness of Wish kicks in, your head will explode if you are fooled in to turning up the volume to hear what Pinion is all about. Wish is easily one of my favourite songs of all time and I still love it as much now as I did on first listen. Drums that sound like they're being played by ten people, sheer noises, guitars that are so distorted that they could explode a planet and electronic music so heavy that you can't fail to move parts of your body you haven't moved in ages. When I saw them in 2014 at the Hydro, this song was the highlight. The whole place vibrated it was so loud. Amazing. Wish is one song you must hear from Broken - check out the video below. Last is next, continuing the sonic attack and again featuring teenage angst like lyrics from a man that wasn't in his teens any more. All that said, when I've had a crap day at work, I usually reach for this e.p. I tends to help. Last also features a rather marvellously sleazy guitar solo at 44 seconds in which is a real joy.
The cheerily titled Help Me I Am In Hell is a short instrumental which then leads to the punishing, enjoyable and most electronic track on here, Happiness In Slavery. This is one track that can only ever sound good played at ear killing volume. It's immense. Finally, the e.p. ends on Gave Up which seems to employ an octopus as a drummer and manages to have one of the catchiest choruses you'll hear in a song that is so distorted and relentless that you feel drunk listening to it.
There are two more hidden tracks too. On the cd, they are tracks 98 and 99 which you have to skip to, on the tape they are right at the end of the otherwise blank side two and with the vinyl they are available on an accompanying 7" which seems far fairer. The first U.S cd pressings featured them on a 3" cd with the main release. Extra track number one is a cover of Adam And The Ants Physical (You're So) which is just bloody tremendous and the second is Suck, a cover of a Pigface track which, again is quite brilliant.
Broken is one of those records that is special to me, partly because of the time in my life I got it but also because it still sounds fresh now. It's a rewarding listen and is tight and focussed which later Nine Inch Nails releases like The Fragile lack in places. It's hard not to love a record that is just this loud and angry. I'd recommend it to anyone. If you feel really brave, try the remix e.p. Fixed which drops all pretence of melody and spends 40 minutes or so smacking you around the head. It's good too, but Broken is the real star
As you probably know, I've featured Shona Brown's ambitious 10 in 10 project before, a project which sees her release a single a month for ten months. There's a real momentum behind her now and she recently featured on Radio Scotland and STV Glasgow where the latter so her play a live version of the next single in the 10 in 10 run, Your Silence Is So Loud.
The song is my favourite one thus far from Shona. A mix of looped beats and bleeps underpin a trademark mix of vocals and harmonies that really catches the ear. It's impressive stuff and I look forward to singles 5-10.
Martin Gore's new solo album MG will be released on Mute Records on 27 April 2015. The album is a 16 track affair and is entirely instrumental. Martin says that he wanted to keep the music "very electronic, very filmic and give it an almost sci-fi like quality." The album, which is available on CD (CDSTUMM381) or double vinyl (STUMM381) (which includes the cd) features 16 tracks. They are:
1. Pinking
2. Swanning
3. Exalt
4. Elk
5. Brink
6. Europa Hymn
7. Creeper
8. Spiral
9. Stealth
10. Hum
11. Islet
12. Crowl
13. Trysting
14. Southerly
15. Featherlight
16. Blade
Martin has made Europa Hymn available to listen to now. It's a lovely track that sounds like it's almost entirely analogue and that's never a bad thing. In melody and atmosphere, it reminds me a great deal of Agent Orange which is still one of my favourite Depeche b-sides. Can't wait to hear the rest of it - only 8 weeks to go!
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