Synth forefathers Andy Bell and Vince Clare stumbled across their stage name after a sound technician absent mind-idly scribbled ‘Erasure’ on an early demo they had co-produced. Their name now etched into music history, this October the duo defiantly return with their fourteenth album to date.
First pricking public interest over two decades ago with their anthemic track ’Sometimes’, electro-pop artists Bell and Clarke have taken their sweet time working Erasure into the mainstream music scene. Releasing their debut album Wonderland twenty-five years ago, their lo-fi three-minute synth-pop sounds proved massively popular amongst underground gay communities back in the day. When they first exploded onto the scene, these two high-heeled, hot-pant-wearing club kids were only interested in having fun and making sweet beats that made people move their dancing feet.
Today not much has changed, their focus is still fixed on encouraging crowds to let loose, sing along and get down to their bubblegum plastic fantastic tracks. Charged full of energy, fun and frivolity, young, up-and-coming artists and producers continue to draw inspiration from the legendary party tunes Erasure throw down. Working closely with Frankmusik and Roy Orton on the latest album, recorded over the course of the past year in Maine, London and Los Angeles, the first single from Tomorrrow’s World, released via Island Records, will be ‘When I Start To (Break It All Down)’.
Overwhelmed by the opportunity to work with two of his all time heroes Frankmusik explained his process working with the lads as pretty much organic; “Vince and Andy would just give me a demo, generally nothing too heavily produced and that would work as a rough guide to a song and they would then just say, do what you want!” Perfectly blending vintage beats with the fresh techniques new music technology offers, Erasure’s new material does not attempt to fix what ain’t broke. Instead the boys have borrowed some of Franksmusik’s oil-like slickness to lubricate their sound’s libido. The results make for some sexy stuff.
i-D online slipped into something a little more comfortable to chat to Andy and Frankmusik about what fans have got to look forward to from the forthcoming album.
