Depeche Mode - Ultra

this is the best album

can we talk in-depth about the ultimate martin gore song also known as "the bottom line"

Nothing will ever top Violator as it's the first album I ever fell in love with but Ultra is one of their very best. Kruder & Dorfmeister's remix of 'Useless' also deserves more love.

Weird, I was only listening to this yesterday and thinking how at this point it may just have my favourite production of all the Depeche Mode albums, although Alan Wilder fanatics may disagree. It's not their best collection of songs, but it is still one of their best albums.

yeah, agreed - there's a real vibe on this one

Having Tim Simenon and his team as the producers really was an inspired choice. Given the whole thing was a project of reconstruction — recovering from Gahan’s near death, Gore kicking alcohol, Fletch’s own breakdown after his sister’s death, and above all Alan’s departure — it would have been easy to simply turn it over to someone and shrug. But Simenon managed a real trick in continuing the murky haze of SOFAD to a degree in continuity — something accentuated by the post trip-hop undertones that had emerged since — while suggesting more light and focus had emerged at just the right moments. Everyone found their way to the middle just enough to create a new dynamic, and while a big final step (Gahan’s emergence as a songwriter) had to wait for Playing, this created a new solid foundation that a year’s further rest and the (really) great Singles Tour solidified.

I wish they'd tried working on another album with Simenon and that Gore had given himself time to overcome his writers block - the 'Only When I Lose Myself' single turned out great (particularly the better-than-the-A-side 'Surrender') but Exciter was really forced and still to me is one of the worst albums they've ever made.

I like how chill (boring) Exciter is.

Exciter is probably the DM album i'm least familiar with (except Dream On, one of my fave singles of theirs) but I appreciated them taking risks and trying unlikely new sounds.

^ Yep

I was pretty disappointed by Exciter, especially after the stronger songs of Playing the Angel, but now I appreciate that they were pushing for a new sound on Exciter. That's the last album where they did so - Playing the Angel was more of a retread to the early days and they've stuck with that palette

I appreciated them taking risks, too. Unfortunately, when a band takes a risk you can't always expect a great outcome and Exciter wasn't a great outcome. I've heard it being described as "intimate", but sonically the LP sounds like tarted-up, studio quality demos in comparison to everything before or since. Song-wise it's a bit of a mixed bag: on the whole it's Gore's worst collection of lyrics since Construction Time Again. Musically, I like 'Shine', 'Goodnight Lovers' and 'Freelove', but on the other hand there's crap like 'Comatose', 'The Dead of Night' and 'I Feel Loved', which was probably their worst single since 'It's Called a Heart' ...

"When the Body Speaks" is an amazingly delicate construction. My sleeper from that album.

Ultra has such a thick sound. Would have loved to hear Simenon tackle the SOFD songs, an album I never connected with.

I love Songs of Faith and Devotion, not just because of the quality of the songs, but they took a risk on that album and it actually worked! They had a lot to lose at that point, and came out with a record which pretty much was a complete departure from everything before it, yet was still very much a Depeche Mode record. They could have alienated a huge part of their audience with that record - somehow, it made them even bigger.

re: Exciter, "Dream On" is super underrated
re: Construction Time Again, that is 2nd or 3rd best album, depending on how I'm feeling about Music for the Masses on a given day
re: Ultra, "Home" and "Useless" are two of their best songs

Watch this space.

Well, since it's live...

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/depeche-mode-ultra/

Very well done.

Great piece Ned. I love songs from Exciter and Playing the Angel and even past that, but this is the last of their albums where I don't skip anything

Nice! Good to see wider public recognize that post imperial phase DM still rules. Probably the band that held up best post 80’s amongst their ilk

I can see why, given the history and the protracted recording process, this is simultaneously their "band in crisis falling apart" record and their "all grown-up now" record; for most groups, they are two separate releases.

Everyone found their way to the middle just enough to create a new dynamic

is a good way of putting it.

Did a little bonus Twitter thread talking about some sources and things to note:

Okay as promised elsewhere a little bit ago, an addendum to the _Ultra_ review for Pitchfork Sunday linking various things noted or mentioned in it. Had to do a lot of source review per fact-checking requirements -- no bad thing! -- and thought I would share some it.

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) July 31, 2022

i agree re the leblanc/wimbish comment.
a proper album of On-U vs DG could be very interesting.
after all, there is a shared history, and DG is now open to working with crews outside of the DM bubble (hello Soulsavers).

I must thank Ned for elbowing me into giving it a second chance. I formed a wrong impression about "Barrel of a Gun." I had no idea the mix would sound so rich, updated for the times; it sounds like Portishead influenced them.

Not a bad way to consider it! There’s a connection there for sure.

I love this alternate video which they showed on the Exciter tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stpaq27-V70

Barrel of a Gun is an all time top five DM track for me. For all that it's a bit tuneless on the surface that's a big red herring in reality.

I also feel that while BOAG sounds rather like Digging in the Dirt, and Ava Adore sounds like BOAG, Ava Adore doesn't at all sound like Digging the Dirt. Odd!

I must thank Ned for elbowing me into giving it a second chance. I formed a wrong impression about "Barrel of a Gun." I had no idea the mix would sound so rich, updated for the times; it sounds like Portishead influenced them.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 September 2022 22:15 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Without wanting to diminish the band's own influence on the sound, it's very telling to listen to Bomb the Bass's Clear alongside Ultra. Simenon's sound is so distinctive but also so... obvious? I don't mean that in a bad way. Perhaps "historically inevitable" captures what I'm getting at better.

Even more pertinently, Ned's excellent piece inspired me to check out Gavin Friday's Shag Tobacco (1996 release also produced by Tim Simenon) which really does feel like a key missing link here: it sounds like the sort of album Jarvis Cocker might have made if he had spent a lot of time listening to Bowie's Outside (and I wouldn't be surprised if Cocker did listen to Shag Tobacco before Pulp recorded This Is Hardcore - though ironically Outside sounds more like Songs of Faith and Devotion than Ultra (of course, it seems a given that both Friday and Gahan/Gore were always already heavily influenced by Bowie). But in any event, it creates for me this kind of loop-effect of these artists from the seventies and eighties grappling with how to milk the sonic developments of the nineties for maximum theatrical effect (all of these artists flirt with Brecht/Weil affectations to varying degrees), and ending up in roughly similar territory.

I don't remember if they recorded it during these sessions but The Singles' "Only When I Lose Myself" is excellent and belongs on my list of the best new songs recorded for a comp.

Apt summary and description there Tim -- at the time of release to me it was just this lush, strange release, Shag Tobacco. I just remember getting really pissed it didn't catch on further, like it was a secret (and still is).

"Only When I Lose Myself" is striking but I admit its B-side "Surrender" hits me just a bit harder, if admittedly a bit more straightforwardly.

When I interviewed Gahan some years back he referred to "Ultra" and "Exciter" as more the product of their producers than usual for the band. Something like, "although Martin and Fletch would probably argue with me, I still describe those records as the Tim Simenon album and the Mark Bell album."

I mean it's a fair assessment, they were still finding out what to do after Wilder's departure. The combination of Dave's songwriting being allowed in and Ben Hillier feeling more like a collaborator essentially set the template for the band going forward with Playing The Angel.

I don't know if Gahan meant that statement in a neutral or negative way, but I love that the DM 90s albums plus Exciter sound so shaped by their producers. It makes each one sound like a different band, almost

Love the vibe going on for "Freestate." That groove could've gone for 10+ minutes easily. Unofficial end of the album for me.

When I interviewed Gahan some years back he referred to "Ultra" and "Exciter" as more the product of their producers than usual for the band. Something like, "although Martin and Fletch would probably argue with me, I still describe those records as the Tim Simenon album and the Mark Bell album."

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 14 September 2022 02:44 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The irony of this is that although I can literally here what Bell contributes on Exciter, at another level it doesn't feel like he leaves much of a trace. All of his typical impulses get translated into this kind of polite fussiness that is of a piece with the mostly nothingy songwriting. But I guess Gahan is also half-right in that the album also feels like less of a DM album than usual as well.

All I know of this album is BOAG, from a free Q Magazine CD released at the time. It slams; I remember thinking how it felt like a different take on the Y2K Matrix-soundtrack cybergoth sound so prevalent elsewhere. I'll have to hear the rest of the album, see if that's the vibe

Sticking it on again, I'm put in mind of nothing so much as The Young Gods

Ultra and Exciter are like the first two Gorillaz albums to me - driven by a single producer before the want to make, for lack of a better term, nearly interchangeable albums slowly takes over (not a criticism, mind).

Really love Ultra a lot, last time I listened to any of it I got really into the songs I never liked when I first heard it about 18 years ago. I got stuck on Useless for ages because I really like the POV shift and the cheesy guitars and The Love Thieves (bc I love how Dave sings love needs its martyrs). When I was younger I was really into Sister of Night and Home (I still really like Home tbh). But happy to see this album get some love!

nearly interchangeable albums slowly takes over (not a criticism, mind)

I definitely criticize them for that