Erasure are back this week with Tomorrow's World, their brand new studio album.
We've got a couple of exclusive videos from rehearsals of 'Love To Hate You' and 'I Lose Myself', and some tour dates to reveal.
Their fourteenth album sees the synthpop legends celebrate 25 years together as a band.
Returning from a four-year sabbatical, Andy and Vince sound refreshed, revitalised and rebooted on Tomorrow’s World.
"To produce the album, they enlisted the services of rising British electro-pop star Vincent “Frankmusik” Frank, the one-man-band whose glittering portfolio of remixes and collaborations includes Lady Gaga, Pet Shop Boys and Ellie Goulding.
Currently based in LA, where he has his own studio, Frank was born in 1985 – the year that Erasure formed.
Vince explains, “We chose Frank because he is someone who has a different approach to the music, who is sympathetic to synthesizers, and incredibly keen.
"He told me the music scene in London was just too small for him, so he made a conscious decision and moved to LA, with nothing! He just really likes that American pop thing – that whole Lady Gaga, full-on wall of sound.”
They've always had a solid-gold songwriting chemistry which has been key to Erasure being able to survive and thrive for over 25 years.
Andy Bell and Vince Clarke still write the same way they always have - together in the same room, face to face, waiting for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, it always does.
“It is just spur of the moment, we can’t write separately” Vince explains. “We are always in a studio with guitar and piano”, adds Andy.
“It has got be the actual physical thing of us being there and doing it. But the songwriting is always in flux. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard.”
“I think it’s getting harder”, says Vince, “but that’s probably because we’re a bit more picky. We tend to write more ideas than songs now.
"The way we used to work, we’d have one or two or three ideas, then piece them together into a song. Now we have five or six or seven ideas, so it gets more confusing. But there is still an incredible amount of satisfaction once you’ve finished a song.”
Behind this musical partnership, of course, lies one of the most enduring friendships in pop. In more than 25 years together, Vince insists he and Andy have never had a single serious argument, and always respected each other’s creative input into Erasure.
“When we’re together we are really together, but when were apart we don’t talk to each other,” Vince explains. “I think that’s part of it. And also we are both pretty low key, neither of us gets particularly precious about ideas. We don’t argue about album titles or anything.”
“I just don’t see why there is any need for drama,” says Andy, ironically one of the most flamboyantly dramatic frontman in pop.
“Vince and I are very similar people really. We are quite monkish, quite Zen about what we do. We definitely share sense of humour, but I also think politics is important.
"We don’t talk about it that often, but we both know what’s fair and not fair, who’s a devil and who isn’t.”
Erasure embark on a 16 date UK tour starting in Leicester on 12 October, and including a show at London’s Roundhouse on 25 October (full details below). The Tomorrow’s World Tour will see Vince Clarke and Andy Bell on stage with a new set of songs, staging, costumes and production and follows this summer’s hit-packed Total Pop! tour of UK forests.
TOMORROW'S WORLD UK TOUR DATES:
Weds 12 October - Leicester De Monfort Hall
Thurs 13 October - Glasgow Academy
Sat 15 October - Edinburgh Corn Exchange
Sun 16 October - Newcastle Academy
Mon 17 October - Grimsby Auditorium
Weds 19 October - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Thurs 20 October - Manchester Apollo
Fri 21 October - Preston Guildhall
Sun 23 October - Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Tues 25 October - London Roundhouse
Weds 26 October - Southend Cliffs Pavillon
Fri 28 October - Southampton Guildhall
Sat 29 October - Bristol Colston Hall
Sun 30 October - Cardiff St Davids Hall
Tues 1 November - Cambridge Corn Exchange
Thurs 3 November - Reading Hexagon
Fri 4 November - Brighton Dome
Let us know what you think of the videos, and check out our review of Tomorrow's World right here.
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