www.futuremusic.co.uk
Date printed: November 1997

Recoil

Alan Wilder is just about to release his third CD under the name of Recoil, but you may know him better as the man who provided much of the Depeche Mode sound between 1983 and 1995. Andy Jones joins him at Mute Records to discuss the new album, the gear, the Mode, and the advantages of being single...

Demonic, vulnerable, medical, scary, evocative, obsessive, lonely, sensuous, tripnotic... " That's how Alan Wilder describes each of the tracks on his new album, Unsound Methods. It's how some critics have described Depeche Mode in the past which, if you think about it, isn't that surprising. Wilder was one of this world dominating foursome for well over a decade and helped sculpt some of their finest sonic moments. Settle have said, myself included, that the last Depeche album lacked a little something and it could be said that we have found it on Unsound Methods. Not that this recording sounds much like Depeche Mode- In fact, it's pretty unlike anything you may have heard, previous Recoil stuff included. Wilder has woven some pretty scary textures together and given the whole thing a hefty 90s' kick up the arse with some super beats and vocals supplied by a fine and diverse bunch including a New York poet and the ex singer of Nitzer Ebb.

'Tripriotic' is indeed perhaps the best way of describing something like Unsoun Methods. A new word to describe the indescribable. Even Mr Wilder himself was unsure of how this latest Recoil offering would sound.

"I don't think you ever know," he explains. "I never know until it's finished! Along the way you have all sorts of concepts and ideas; you think you know where you're going and then something happens or someone does something that turns it on its head again. So really you just keep an open mind and work instinctively as you go along. I work rather as a painter might. I just put something on a canvas and then that leads me to the next thing."

One advantage that Alan Wilder has is his access to a wide range of vocalists who temporarily join the Recoil fold. On the last album, Bloodline, Curves Toni Halliday, Nitzer Ebb's Douglas McCarthy and a certain Moby helped out (Moby on the superb track Curse and Halliday on Edge To Life, before she went on to more Leftfield things). This time around Wilder began the project unsure of whether artists would be involved at all.

"I stalled off doing something instrumental to see where it took me. It has retained the atmosphere but it became apparent that trying to complete the tracks as instrumentals wasn't going to stand up and they'd need voices:'

Douglas McCarthy reappears on Unsond Methods, but the other three artists are less well known: a gospel singer -called Hilda Campbell; a spoken word artist from New York called Maggie Estep; and another singer, signed on the strength of a demo, Siobhan Lynch.

"I thought it would be more interesting to use different people," Wilder explains. "it brings a degree of tension working on something with someone you don't know. You have no idea what's going to happen. I think it's a gamble very much worth taking with everything to gain and nothing to lose. It could go horribly wrong, in which case you just part company and move on. However, if it does work you have the potential to get something really special you didn't expect, while simultaneously making a new friend and colleague in the process.

"I gave them fairly free reign, I really didn't want to impose on them too much. I wanted them to bring whatever they felt was appropriate to the project, but within a framework. I obviously gave them tapes of the music and loose themes or directions but nothing more than that. It gave them something to focus on but also enough scope to do their own thing."

The new Recoil sound has a real late 90s feel, largely due to the breaks that accompany the vocalists described above. Bill nothing in Mr Wilder's life is intentional.

"I think you are constantly influenced by what is around at the time, but again I wasn't trying to get a particular feel. I was simply employing aspects of music that I enjoy. I like a lot of the kind of groove-based music of people like Massive Attack and Portishead. That sort of influence is in there in some of the rhythms. But I also like completely different types of music as well. When I'm going through CDs in the shops I always end up in the soundtrack section. I listen to quite a wide cross section of styles and what I produce is just a reflection of these tastes"

While Unsound Methods retains some typical Alan Wilder moments, the overall sound is quite a departure from Depeche Mode. Was this intentional?

"I don't think I was thinking about it that much," Alan replies. "I think that maybe there was a conscious move to do something less electronic but you utilise whatever you feel will work at the tune. If I thought something electronic was appropriate, I would have used it. I try not to have too many ground rules.

"There are a few sequencer parts but from a rythm point of view I wanted something that really grooves more. To program sleazy drum rythms electronically or to find 'that' groove is difficult. I do play drums myself but not particularly well. Most of these are sampled loops cut up and mutated quite radically from their original source."

So what were the original sources?

"There are all kinds of things really. I'm not sure whether I'm prepared In disclose it! He laughs. "I really just take sounds from wherever I can find them. There are various tapes that get passed around the industry that are full of drum loops and nothing else. I haven't got a clue where they come from and I couldn't even tell you if any of them are contentious. I also re-use sounds that we used with Depeche on occasion." These sounds were particularly noticeable on Recoil's first EP, I + 2,
which Alan describes as him "just faffing around at home on a four-track cassette and experimenting with samplers...".

And did we hear some Kraftwerk on there?

"Oh I expect so!," he jokes. "I wouldn't be surprised:'