album // Chorus
1991's Chorus, Vince Clarke and Andy
Bell's fifth studio album as Erasure, found the duo working
with producer Martyn Phillips and Dave Bascombe, who
mixed the album. The album was recorded in Toulouse and Hamburg.
Phillips was renowned for his experience with - and indeed personal
collection of - vintage analogue synthesizers. The result found
Vince resuming his experience with the Moogs and ARPs that characterised
his earliest recordings with Depeche Mode and Yazoo
almost ten years before.
The significance of Chorus should not be
underestimated - in 1991, digital synthesis was evolving rapidly
as component prices fell, new manufacturers came into the market
and PC/Mac sequencers improved exponentially with each version;
thus to produce an album so richly detailed and intricate with 'outdated'
and cumbersome equipment, while retaining the soul, emotion and
energy that makes Erasure such a consistent songwriting duo, was
a pretty brave and inventive move. I have to confess that I was
a little disappointed on the first listen after rushing home clutching
the cassette in my sweaty teenage hands the Saturday after Chorus
was released - where were the piano keyboards? The samples? The
string-esque pads? However, one listen in and I was totally hooked.
Me Company designed the futuristic sleeve, featuring
brain scans of Andy and Vince while a shadowy 'E' symbol forms a
repeated background pattern. If this was a not-so-subtle drugs reference
then it was lost on me, although the 'Do not exceed the stated dose'
message now does appear just a tad dubious. The limited edition
cardboard box edition features a number of very American square
photographs - none are of Erasure, making this a rather bizarre
collector's item for the obsessive Erasure fan. And if that sounds
weird, you should see the oversized plastic box and press kit that
accompanied the promo. I was offered this for £50 at a record
fair and thought it ridiculous...but instantly regretted it.
Of the ten tracks on Chorus, four were released
as singles - 'Chorus', 'Love To Hate You', 'Am I Right' and a remixed
'Breath Of Life' - and all deservedly charted high in the UK. In
truth, the seven remaining tracks would have also been successful
as singles, that's how good Chorus is.
Second track, 'Waiting For The Day', is case in
point, an emotional plea for a broken relationship to repair itself,
Andy effecting what I always considered a country twang in his phrasing,
while Vince supplies a beautifully melodic array of upbeat sounds.
Andy's lyrics perfectly capture the turmoil of some relationships
: 'It was only for a fight that I asked you to come in / But
you brought me tumbling down / And the walls came crashing in'
runs the first few lines. There's a fantastically layered middle
eight too, which really came into its own live. 'Joan' - I don't
honestly know why it's called that - is a quirky one, a hazy, sparse
tune over what can only be described as an electronic version of
the 'baggy' rhythm of Happy Mondays, Stone Roses etc. 'It's just
not within the scheme of things to give up your life so easily'
runs the chorus, which is about as serious as you'd want Erasure
to get. The noises are typically obtuse, but still colour Andy's
plaintive vocal with finesse. The album version of 'Breath Of Life'
is pretty much the same as the single remix, albeit bereft of some
of the low end punch.
'Am I Right?' and 'the gayest of gay tangoes' (according
to Andy) - 'Love To Hate You' - follow in quick succession, but
in a way it's the next sequence of tracks that really stands out.
'Turns The Love To Anger' starts us off - a bleak warning on mankind's
responsibilities to our environment. It feels like two songs merged
together - the first half finds Vince supplying a subtle suite of
synth patterns and a sullen, layered 'beat', while the second half
comes in on a viciously effective riff (that Vince used again on
his mix of Nitzer Ebb's 'Ascend'), dragging in its wake a
4/4 beat and whirring melodic hook. 'Siren Song' captures the imagery
contained in the title, with the synths and vocal drifting in like
the mysterious Greek legends music over the waves. Difficult, however,
to not imagine Andy arriving onstage to this on a motorised swan.
'Perfect Stranger', which fades in as its layers
are added, is a perfect, upbeat Erasure pop number. 'Hell, I
gave up my time for a no good affair / You'd think I'd learned by
now' sings a slightly dismayed Bell, all the while Vince's synths
bleeping and twirling around him. It's simply brilliant, and it
rises and rises emotionally, despite having no discernible chorus.
'Home' - for a long while Vince's favourite Erasure
song - is a melancholy, fragile song, in a way a response to 'Hideaway'
on The Circus - 'I'm never coming home because I'm having
a good time' is case in point. It evokes a wintery chill, an
uncomfortable eerines, all of which is blown away by a much more
optimistic second half, wherein the beat arrives and ushers in some
warm, fudgy riffs from Vince. When you can make music this good,
why would you want to go home?
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