Name: Songs of Silence
Brand: Vince Clarke

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

STUMM500

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-11-17

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

PIAS

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

5400863142049

Total Cap

Black LP

CDSTUMM500

5400863142056

Artist

Vince Clarke

Genre GB

Label GB

Mute

Please note, some Mute issues also carry an EMI logo. This is not a label and EMI should not be added as a label, it instead indicates that Mute was part of the EMI Group.

Founded in 1978 by [a=Daniel Miller], Mute (also known as [l36339]) releases various forms of music, with an emphasis on electronic and experimental pop. In May 2002 the label was acquired by the [l=EMI Group]. In 2010 Miller did an agreement with EMI to handle Mute as an independent label again, licensing the trademark from EMI via his company [l=Mute Artists Ltd.], but EMI kept the rights over Mute's back catalogue. After the EMI Group was dissolved, in 2012 [l206061] acquired [l636]'s back catalogue.

Branch offices exist in Germany ([l168349]) and in North America ([l36296]). 

Mute has spawned many regional and special-interest sublabels, some of which are still active. One offshoot, [l=Parallel Series], even became independent of [l636] Mute also operates Mute Bank Mail Order, which sells the label's merchandise directly to consumers. Mute Bank published two issues of [i]Mute Statement[/i], a softcover book that details the entire discography of the label and includes band profiles and photos of release artwork.

Another label strongly associated with Mute is [l=Toast Hawaii], run by [a=Depeche Mode]'s [a=Andrew Fletcher].

Label code: [b]LC 05834[/b] / [b]LC 5834[/b]

‘[b]P[/b]’, included to the catalog numbers,
generally stand for promo copies.
‘[b]L[/b]’, included to the catalog numbers,
generally stand for limited editions.

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Vince Clarke presents, unbelievably, his first ever solo album, <i>Songs of Silence</i>.  As the album title suggests, <i>Songs of Silence</i> is a lyric-less, instrumental album, and is hugely evocative for that.  Unlike anything you’ve previously heard from Vince Clarke, as an artisan of dynamic electropop, (Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yazoo), Songs of Silence has about it a more sober ambient electronic beauty, its unique characteristics put it in a category of its own.  For the creation of the record Vince set himself two rules – first that the sounds he himself generated for the album would come solely from Eurorack (a modular synthesizer format introduced in the mid-90s) and secondly that each track would be based around one note, maintaining a single key throughout. The resultant pieces, with the Eurorack sound clay then manipulated on Logic Pro, amount to wordless narratives, in which a sense of synth-generated, cosmic remoteness is often jolted by stark interventions, reminders of the human hand at work amid this machinery.  This album sees Vince Clarke not content to rest on his considerable pop legacy, and instead open up for himself, and for the rest of us, exciting new electronic vistas in which the permutations and possibilities are limitless.

Songs of Silence

Music GB

Discover Songs of Silence by Vince Clarke. His first ever solo album is a lyric-less, instrumental masterpiece. Available in various formats from Mute Records.