Depeche Mode's Martin Gore and Vince Clarke reunite for new album

Three decades after they parted ways, Depeche Mode co-founders Martin Gore and Vince Clarke have reunited, albeit mostly in the digital realm, to create new music together.

Billboard.com quotes Gore as saying: "Out of the blue I got an e-mail from [Clarke] just saying, 'I'm interested in making a techno album. Are you interested in collaborating?' This was maybe nine months, a year ago. He said, 'No pressure, no deadlines,' so I said, 'OK,' and that's what we've been doing the last six months."

The two musicians collaborated mostly via email and file-sharing, and the resulting album, which is all instrumental, has no firm release date.

Gore and Clarke, along with future Depeche Mode bandmate Andy Fletcher, first played together in 1980 under the name Composition of Sound, with Clarke on vocals and guitar. When Dave Gahan came onboard as lead singer and Clarke switched to synthesizers, Depeche Mode was born.

Clarke was the band's primary songwriter, composing all of its early hits, including "Dreaming of Me", "New Life", and "Just Can't Get Enough" (see video below).

Clarke left Depeche Mode in 1981 and went on to have hits with Yazoo and Erasure. After his departure, Gore took over as the group's resident tunesmith.

Having re-established himself as part of Depeche Mode's extended family, Clarke has also remixed the song "Behind the Wheel" for the three-disc version of the band's new Remixes 2: 81-11 compilation. That collection also features a retooling of "In Chains" by Alan Wilder, another ex-member, who left the group in 1995.

Seeing old wounds patched up and former bandmates collaborating again sort of warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it? Maybe even the sub-cockles.