VINCE CLARKE, NEIL ARTHUR AND BENGE UNITE AS DOUBLESPEAK
Erasure’s Vince Clarke, Blancmange’s Neil Arthur and the electronic producer-writer-synth-nerd Benge have joined forces to form the new project Doublespeak. Set to be released this May, their self-titled debut album revisits eleven of their favorite songs from the past four decades.
The Doublespeak album is divided between songs from the postpunk netherworld (Fad Gadget, The Sound, Young Marble Giants), pop radio monsters (ABBA, David Essex, The Carpenters) and buried treasures from the 1990s onwards (The Magnetic Fields, Ed Dowie and Laptop). Collectively, the album amounts to a shadow autobiography of the three collaborators’ continuing musical education.
Reflecting on the process, Neil Arthur says, “What’s really stood out for us on this journey is how good these songs are. It’s from doing your own version that you realize what incredible pieces of work they are.”
Vince Clarke adds, “I knew so little about some of these songs that they were like demos to me. They felt like brilliant new songs that you want to get your hands on. I’ve had people do cover versions of my songs and honestly there’s no better tribute. So that’s what we wanted to do here.”
Echoing that sentiment, Benge says, “For me it was the excitement of hearing these great songs resynthesized into new forms in the studio. It was such an honor to be part of it.”
The trio launch Doublespeak by sharing their take on Fad Gadget’s ‘“’Back To The Nature’ – a song which was famously just the second Mute Records release in 1979 after founder Daniel Miller’s first single as The Normal. Doublespeak’s version achieves the seemingly unachievable: feeling as if the late Frank Tovey had himself time-travelled to re-record it in 2026.
The rest of the album includes David Essex’s ‘Rock On’, sounding like Kraftwerk-meets-Suicide, The Carpenters’ ‘Goodbye To Love’ given an analogue torch song vibe and spin the Cold War paranoia of ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ into an equally fear-filled digital domain. Also on the album, a beautiful and humane reading of ‘Richard!’ by Ed Dowie, and a maximalist twist on the sparse hookiness of Thomas Leer and Robert Rental’s ‘Day Breaks, Night Heals’.
The roots of the project date back to the mutual respect shared between Depeche Mode and Blancmange during their early days. Neil Arthur subsequently recorded an unreleased track for Vince Clarke’s latter project The Assembly, but it wasn’t until 2017 when Neil suggested the initial idea for this project – and Vince was excited by the less obvious songs that had been suggested. A kindred spirit, Benge also joined the project after he co-produced the previous six Blancmange albums and also collaborated with Neil on their Fader project.
The Doublespeak album is out 29 May and is available to pre-order. Formats include CD, Standard LP and limited green ripple vinyl. The first 500 orders from the official Doublespeak store come with a signed A5 print (while stocks last).
Pre-Order via: https://doublespeak.tmstor.es
