After darting from project to project for the first half of the 1980s, songwriter/synth dude Vince Clarke had finally formed a lasting partnership (with Andy Bell, whose voice still sounds uncannily like Clarke's old Yaz partner Alison Moyet). She is right at the top of her game musically and lyrically, delivering pop music that is more relevant now than at any point in her illustrious career.When Erasure released Pop! The First 20 Hits in 1992, it was a greatest-hits that was practically a boast: 20 consecutive singles, almost every one of them a significant UK hit. It shows Alison Moyet as a vocalist of immense sensitivity, feeling and lasting power. Topping this are the sweetly sung backing vocals from Moyet’s daughter Alex. The silvery backing to The English U takes this a step further, showing the more sensitive side to the strings when paired with softly thrummed harp. The strings on Alive bristle with intent, typical of the original and high quality orchestration running through the album. Other, Happy Giddy and Alive form a powerful trio with which to finish the album. “Whichever way we fall we’re dancing,” she sings to the significant other. A brooding electro production provides the backing for some idiosyncratic lyrics.
Reassuring Pinches gets much closer to home, the only song not obviously influenced by others’ deeds. Beautiful Gun is a striking oration, laden with macho imagery of the empty kind as it serves a barefaced commentary on man’s inhumanity to man. If you enjoy her way with a one-liner on Twitter, then you’ll like her lyrical style here too. Meanwhile April 10th is a poem set to atmospheric broken beats, Moyet’s sonorous tones, given in spoken word, both a comfort and a challenge. Lover, Go is a torch song for the older woman, Moyet digging deep to deliver a song in the manner of a big screen theme over a backing not a million miles from Massive Attack’s Teardrop. By contrast I Germinate is laden with heavy meaning, its chords shifting ominously beneath the powerful vocal. Happy Giddy is a surprise, taking her on an electro disco night out. It would also explain the variety of tempos and styles along the way, emphasising her artistic versatility, and her now mature relationship with collaborator Guy Sigsworth. Perhaps the title of Other is in reference to its source material, for Moyet used other people’s situations as a stimulus for her own songs, eavesdropping and elaborating to make them suitable, and then giving them all she had in the recording process. Like Dave Gahan, Marc Almond, Debbie Harry and Andy Bell, to name just a few, Moyet is a vocalist whose biggest decade looked set to be the 1980s – but here, 30 years on, she continues to develop while keeping the qualities that made her stand out in the first place.
It turns out to be the best possible vehicle for one of the most recognisable voices in British pop music. Other might be a modest branding for Alison Moyet’s first new album in four years, but its contents are meaningful and deeply expressive.
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