Back then, evil tongues claimed that the events around the 15th album of Depeche Mode were more exciting than the music it would offer. We did not believe that and therefore made our mark on Memento Mori. Our findings in eight steps appeared in the MusikExpress 12/2022.
July 2018: The end of the Spirits tour-and the beginning of Memento Mori
What started in Stockholm in May 2017 – two weeks after the album Spirit’s album – ends much more than a year later on the Berlin Waldbühne: Depeche fashion with the songs of the current albums so medium -loved by the fans are on tour, of course also with all the hits. It is a gigantic company when it comes to length and logistics. Since 1993, since Songs of Faith & Devotion, Depeche Mode has been driving an astonishingly disciplined four -year rhythm: a new record every four years – this clocking is justice for the tanker that this band represents. Accordingly, there should have been a new album again in 2021. But in 2020 nothing will happen – except that the Coronavirus lifts the world out of the fishing for months.
Not even Dave Gahan’s drug addiction, second death included, or his cancer were able to endanger the four -year rhythm of Depeche Mode. That this is now blown up: is it because of Covid-19 or because the band can no longer want to, no longer wants?
November 2020: The “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”
As an Englishman, Gahan, Gore and Fletcher can assess that the recording of their band in this arbitrary canon of the greatest rock groups of all time is quite a curd. Martin Gore in particular also lives in the United States long enough to recognize how significant the fame hall is assessed here. Because the pandemic is raging, the three can be switched on by video for the ceremony. They are in a good mood. The best jokes are made Fletcher, he also has the Hall of Fame Award in his apartment and waves into the camera, a quarter proud, amused three quarters.
Depeche fashion does not give the impression of a band on the brink in this ceremony, but as a group that gains in internal dynamics.
January 2021: Martin Gore’s solo EP
Gore develops the tracks for his solo-EP the Third Chimpanzee, which will be released in January 2021, in his home studio in California. When asked whether this solo work in the studio is more or less intense than the production processes with the band, he says in the interview:
“More because I don’t want to give anything as a solo artist. At Depeche Mode there are producers who do a lot of work. […] Then they are who tell us: the piece is now finished. Then we listen to this – and often agree. It is different with the solo pieces, so I have to put the end of the end myself, which is not easy with electronic music, which can keep growing. ”
Since the recordings for Memento Mori also largely took place in Martin Gores Heimstudio, it is obvious that he enjoyed this more direct work.
November 2021: Dave Gahan’s solo album
The songs from Imposter, recorded with Rich Machin and Ian Glover Aka Soulsavers, are already being published before pandemic, but the disk from cover versions is only published in late autumn 2021. Gahan designs a revue from songs that have determined his life. In the interview, however, he also tells how working on new pieces at Depeche Mode works:
“When Martin writes a song, he gives it to me as a demo and it takes months for us to go to the studio. Until then, I study the song, adapt it and sing it at the end of the process as if it were my song. ”
The way in which Dave Gahan tells the process of singing new Depeche mode songs in autumn 2021 shortly before the publication of his long-term solo platte allows: This is exactly what happens.
May 26, 2022: Andrew Fletcher dies
The message comes suddenly: Fletch is dead. So that a pop star of the 1980s, someone that you actually only remember young-as young as you would like to remember yourself. Andy Fletcher was without a question the player in the background. In the mourning pieces that had to be written freshly because no editorial team had a Fletch on the Nachrede Holde, it was said that without him this band could not have existed for so long. If the silent fletch was so important – then it is more than questionable that there will be dug fashion without it.
August 15, 2022: A photo from the studio
The tweet to the picture: “Stability find what we can and love, focus on what makes our lives meaning and meaning.”
All signs indicate that Depeche Mode is working on a new album. On the other hand, it is also possible that the two will meet to put together a box of the musical heritage together. Because is that just a few months after the surprising death, can it be easily continued?
September 19, 2022: A message makes the round
A light whisper will soon become a storm: Depeche Mode want to announce a new album and a new tour at the beginning of October, as part of a press conference in Berlin. Depeche fashion gives back its importance, in the middle of the tangle of war, in the energy crisis. But then the music express also reports: “Now it is clear. Everything just fake! “
Background of the message: Gore and Gahan had confirmed a middleman that the news of the press conference did not publish the news himself. Whereupon in some media – and also on Musikexpress.de – the statement follows that the announcement is wrong. Fake news in pop – how exciting!
October 4, 2022: The announcement
Photos show that Martin Gore and Dave Gahan leave to Europe, goal: Berlin. There, journalists and music business people came to the Ensemble in Berlin to testify that there will be a new album, plus another eternal tour-the tanker moves.
What becomes clear when talking to Gore and Gahan in the vicinity of the press conference: Memento Mori is again produced by James Ford, who has also taken on this job at Spirits – not by Gore, albeit to share in Gores Studio. And also not by Rick Rubin, albeit to parts in Rubins Studio.
In a first, short promotional film on tour and record, two songs sound, both rather synthly poppy than rocking. One of them is called “Ghosts Again”, Gore reveals, is “classic Depeche Mode” and could become the first single.
Memento Mori – Gemen that you are mortal: the title already had the title before Fletch died. He is said to have campaigned for him. Tourstart is on March 23 in California – which can be expected to have an album release in early March.
And indeed: On March 24, 2023, the time had come – Memento Mori was released into the world. A few days earlier, however, it was even leaked online.