KURT UENALA FEAT. DAVE GAHAN
Manuscript (HFN)
ALVA NOTO FEAT. MARTIN L GORE & WILLIAM BASINSKI
Subterraneans (Noton Germany)
With a new Depeche Mode album in the can and set for release in March, neither Dave Gahan or Martin Gore have been putting their feet up, respectively featuring on these two new releases: Manuscript and Subterraneans.
Multi-instrumentalist Kurt Uenala has previously worked with both Depeche Mode and Gahan separately, and the five-track Manuscript has a little in common with Nick Cave’s recent Seven Psalms. But whilst Cave tackled faith and loss on that EP, Gahan seems to be reasoning with angels and devils on his first spoken word release. The bleak, cinematic electronic soundscapes that accompany Gahan’s poems were created in a decommissioned hospital in Uenala’s home of Iceland. At just under 15 minutes, Manuscript leaves the listener hungry for more: an emotive work that sees both artists going outside their comfort zone.
Uuenala’s productions have a certain Berlin-era Bowie edginess to them, which leads us to Subterraneans, a take on the 1977 Bowie song by German electronic artist Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), William Basinski and Depeche Mode’s Gore. Nicolai grew up in 1970s East Berlin – on the other side of the divide when Subterraneans was recorded in Kreuzberg’s Hansa studio – and the song’s theme of oppressive confinement struck a chord with him. It did, too, with Gore, who would record three Depeche Mode albums at Hansa in the 1980s, and for this cover, he provides the vocals. Basinski is best known nowadays as a tape loop experimentalist, but as a saxophonist once played in a band that supported Bowie, and revisits that instrument here. The end result is as stunningly beautiful as it is moving.Â
words DAVID NOBAKHT
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