Union Street - Erasure

...and mixed at Union Street Recording, Brooklyn, NY
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, NY, NY

Production coordinator Jill Walsh
Additional vocal production Jill Walsh
Engineered by Juan Garcia, Nick Cipriano and Zach Dycus
Technical services Joe Salvatto

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The new album by Erasure 'Union Street'(their 14th!) is a bit of an enigma, which makes me wonder if the duo have finally run out of ideas, or didn't want to waste them on us.

However for the uninitiated this acoustic (yes pop-pickers you heard me correctly 'ACOUSTIC') album strips down the songs to their bare bones and lets out some of the soul as a sample of what they are capable of.

Just as the band had recaptured some of the form of its 90s heyday with Erasure's return to electro pop heaven, ('Nightbird') Vince Clark and Andy Bell have gone all acoustic on us, just as the Pet Shop Boys recently did, before going back to their synths.

Here is a collection of b-sides and album tracks, redone with 'real' instruments and credible musicians - and way too much slide-guitar.

(The name 'Union Street' is the name of the Brooklyn studio where it was recorded by the way in case you were wondering Ciao-sters!)

The problem is most of the tracks here weren't singles for a reason, they were never good enough to be singles or were too un-commercial to hit the charts.

When you strip songs down to a singer, guitar and cello, they have to fall on the quality of the songs themselves. The lyrics and melody have to shine through.

The stronger songs such as 'Home', 'Love Affair' and the sublime 'How Many Times?' sound fantastic despite and not because of the arrangements.

Songs like 'Tenderest Moments' and 'Piano Song' don't work because the original instrumentation was the key to their success.

The latter sounded perfect with just a voice, lamenting the passing of youth and fame and a solitary piano, hence the name and was a highlight of the 'Wild!' album.

It is turned into a country ballad (there is criminal over-use of the slide guitar again on this track - have Vince and Andy been living in Texas?) with a sub-New Seekers riff, that detracts rather than enhances the sound.

There is a selection here from albums 'Cowboy', 'Wild!', 'Erasure', 'The Circus', 'Chorus', 'Loveboat' (which had some good acoustic tracks in their original form ) and 'I Say, I Say, I Say'.

But long-term fans will remember some earlier Erasure tracks re-recorded with an orchestra on 'The Two Ring Circus' to fantastic effect, with master arrange Andrew Poppy and compare this with that.

The one song which really benefits from the the new form is 'How Many Times?' - they have often played this acoustically live and on TV shows and know it works. It would easily reach top ten status if it was released.

Andy Bell's vocals take on an oakey rich baritone with a quality unmatched as far as I can remember by any of his vocal performances. He is just backed by Steve Walsh on guitar and in this case less is more.

This is contrasted with 'Love Affair' in which a string arrangement is unnecessarily flung into the mix.

I don't know if it's the need to experiment for the sake of it or the need, in their 40s, to be accepted as 'real musicans' or a desire to stick two fingers up to the charts which spurred the lads to make this album. There was really no need.

Vince founded Depeche Mode, The Assembly and Yazoo before Erasure and has played keyboard and guitar with the best of them.

Andy sometimes plays the accordian live (remember 'The Circus' and 'Safety In Numbers?')and is an accomplished musician in his own right.

Erasure have been one of the UK's most successful bands for the lasat 20 years, quietly having hits while their contemporaries fell at pop's roadside.

I am hoping that live we are treated to more songs, with better arrangements.

But having said all that, Embrace or The Charlatans would kill for songs this good to play acoustically.

It is just with Erasure's standards being so far I do feel a little let down.

"We just felt there were songs on our albums that had been missed as songs," says Clarke in a recent internet interview.

"We found this cool guitarist [Steve Walsh] with a cool studio [Union Street] and decided to use both. Steve put the thing together.

" It was great going back through those songs, some of which I hadn't listened to properly since we made them - suddenly you heard some of the naivety that was in there in the first place."

The idea, says Bell, was "to show the songs in a different light, and show that they could work on whatever instrument, synthesisers or guitars."

If they needed to get this album out of their system before going back to the electropop or ambient techno of yore they should at least have got Mr Poppy to orchestrate it and gone on tour with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.

Having said all that it is interesting to hear Andy's voice so prominently in the mix and hear new versions of classic album tracks.

But perhaps it should have been as a bonus CD rather than an album to itself.

The artwork is interesting, although the hand-drawn pictures seem to make Vince look like a cross between Matt Lucas and an alien with a very small head and big guitar.

Now just hold that image!

This album is interesting. An enigma may be puzzling, but it also has its interest.

All Formats (All Regions)
1 Boy
2 Piano Song
3 Stay With Me
4 Spiralling
5 Home
6 Tenderest Moments
7 Alien
8 Blues Away
9 How Many Times?
10 Love Affair
11 Rock Me Gently

Notes

Produced by Steve Walsh and Vince Clarke

Mixed by Jason Lehning
Recorded and mixed at Union Street Recording, Brooklyn, NY
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, NY, NY

Production coordinator Jill Walsh
Additional vocal production Jill Walsh
Engineered by Juan Garcia, Nick Cipriano and Zach Dycus
Technical services Joe Salvatto

 

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