Richard X on working with Erasure

[erasurehead]

https://lastdonutofthenight.substack.co ... -mia-annie



Erasure, “Elevation”
[Mute Records founder] Daniel Miller has always been good to me and understands what I can do, so he sometimes thought of me—and he thought of me for this. He played me the demos, and I said, “Where are the songs?” And he said, “That’s gonna be a hit.” It’s not a criticism—that’s how they work.

With this song, there was a melody, and [Vince Clarke] wanted this whole album to be analog, so I worked on the arrangement before the song—which is quite odd for me, because I think the song informs the sonics. But it was quite easy to work with Vince and [Andy Bell] on this. At the time, EDM was huge, but it was also wiping out all other electronic music in its wake. I wanted a bit of the influence [of EDM], but not necessarily the sound, which made the arrangements a bit dancier.

If you listen to it, it’s still Erasure—but people really hated it when it came out. I think it’s because they made a dance-y looking video. There’s nothing wrong with the song at all. But [Erasure] weren’t in the video, and it was a sunny dance video, so some of the fans were up in arms about that—but they calmed down when they heard the record. It’s nice to have people like them respecting my opinion when I grew up listening to their records.

[MikeyC]

Thanks for posting!

The interview also has fascinating stories about his work with PSB, Annie, Róisín, Saint Etienne and more!!

[AaronLancs]

I agree with Mr. X, in that there are Vinceisms on Elevation and obviously the rest of TVF but cleverly disguised behind the EDM stuff. I'd say it is the stuff that makes you go hum hum hum.

[mrblue]

I'd love another collaboration with Richard X. TVF is Erasure's best album post-Nightbird imho.

[Islanderab]

I'd love another collaboration with Richard X. TVF is Erasure's best album post-Nightbird imho.

I agree 100%

[AaronLancs]

I'd say the production work that Mr. X did is similar to an album by one of my other favourite artists. @Pughie if I may be allowed a sidebar your honour.

The similarity for me is in the Liverpool combo Space with their second album "Tin Planet". Then - at the time of producing the album in 1998 - future E mixer Jeremy Wheatley did a brilliant job at still keeping their sound but cleverly hiding behind the production work he did. Notably in how the music moves from say section to section (Verse to Chorus to Middle). Whereas before you'd notice the "joins" with these two albums, you don't if you see what I mean.