With over 50 hit singles and greater than 100 million data bought, English synth-pop masters Depeche Mode may nonetheless play sold-out stadiums if they’d stopped releasing music within the mid-’90s. “We may simply, if we needed to, simply exit and play the hits,” vocalist Dave Gahan tells Apple Music. “However that’s not what we’re about.” Depeche Mode’s fifteenth studio album is their first with out co-founder and keyboardist Andy Fletcher, who handed away in 2022. This unhappy and massively important occasion within the band’s historical past is mirrored within the album’s title. “Memento Mori—‘keep in mind that it’s essential to die,’” Gahan says, translating the Latin phrase. “The music actually will outlive all of us.”
Predominant songwriter Martin Gore began engaged on the report early within the pandemic—nicely earlier than Fletcher’s demise—however recollects the second when he performed his demos for Gahan. “It’s at all times a troublesome second when it’s important to current your songs for the primary time to Dave,” he tells Apple Music. “I’d’ve been presenting them to Andy as nicely, clearly. He handed away simply days earlier than I used to be about to ship him the songs. And that’s one of many very unhappy elements about it, as a result of he used to like getting the songs.”
Memento Mori is notable for one more huge cause: It marks the primary time Gore has labored with a songwriter outdoors of Depeche Mode. He teamed up with Psychedelic Furs vocalist Richard Butler on a number of tracks, together with “Don’t Say You Love Me,” “Caroline’s Monkey,” and the pulsing lead single “Ghosts Once more.” Surprisingly, the band tracked extra than simply the 12 songs that seem on the album. “We really recorded 16 songs for this album, and it was very tough to decide on the 12 that made it,” Gore says. “That’s very in contrast to us, however we now have 4 within the vault. It’s a really, very small vault. It’s like a thumb drive.”
Regardless of the melancholy inherent in a number of the songs, Memento Mori is finally life-affirming—and a testomony to Depeche Mode’s dedication to the inventive course of. “It’s music, and it’s artwork, and it’s one thing that’s extremely informing,” Gahan says. “With out it, I don’t know the place I’d be.” Under, he and Gore touch upon a number of of the important thing tracks.
“My Cosmos Is Mine”
Dave Gahan: “It’s really one among my favorites on the album. When Martin first despatched me the demo, it did not strike me. However very often these are those that creep up on me later—that I most establish with for some cause—and that music was a kind of. I keep in mind going to Martin’s home and singing it, and I knew we have been capturing one thing. I really feel like I discovered a which means within the music that I recognized with, and I do not usually. When I discovered my place with that music, I knew it was going to be an important introduction to Memento Mori.”
“Ghosts Once more”
Gahan: “After I first heard that music, I used to be like, ‘Okay. I am in.’ The demo made me really feel on the spot pleasure. I keep in mind dancing round my lounge, and my daughter got here in and he or she was me bizarre, like, ‘What is going on on?’ I used to be like, ‘Do not you’re keen on this?’ She type of began bopping together with me and he or she was like, ‘I get it. It is a actually good music.’”
“Don’t Say You Love Me”
Gahan: “It’s very Scott Walker. To me, it’s this stunning torch, however I really like these sorts of songs. I imply, it’s like a film or one thing. Martin wrote that one with Richard Butler.”
Martin Gore: “Which is one thing I’ve by no means achieved earlier than, labored with any individual outdoors the band. He reached out to me round April 2020. The pandemic had hit, and he simply texted and mentioned, ‘We must always write some songs collectively.’ And he really mentioned that when earlier than, like 10 years in the past or one thing, however nothing ever got here of it. However as a result of it was the pandemic, I believed, ‘If I’m going to do one thing completely different, now is an effective time to experiment.’ So we did, and we ended up writing six songs that I actually like.”
“Communicate to Me”
Gahan: “Properly, it is kind of metaphors. The loneliness, the vacancy, the void, the eager to be with folks and life—and on the identical time, not eager to be. The preliminary concept got here to me, however the music was extremely elevated by Martin and our producers, James [Ford] and Marta [Salogni], into a unique place, one other world. And that is precisely the place I needed the music to go as nicely. However it’s past what I may have put collectively myself. It’s a quite simple music, however sincere and actual. For me, it was the important thing that opened the door for me to make one other Depeche Mode report with Martin. It was a solution to that query for me.”