Erasure Go Acoustic On New Album

01/04/06 6:30pm

Erasure have made a pretty living from their synth-pop-dance tunes over the past 20 years, so you may be surprised to find out that the duo's next album will feature acoustic versions of songs from their catalogue.

Vince Clarke and the ever-flamboyant Andy Bell recorded the interpretations in a basement studio in Brooklyn, New York "to show the songs in a different light, and show that they could work on whatever instrument, synthesizers or guitars," says Bell on the group's website.

"We just felt there were songs on our albums that had been missed as songs," says Clarke on the same site. "We found this cool guitarist [Steve Walsh] with a cool studio [Union Street] and decided to use both.

"Steve put the thing together. It was great going back through those songs, some of which I hadn't listened to properly since we made them — suddenly you heard some of the naivety that was in there in the first place."

The acoustic album, titled Union Street, will be released in the U.K. on April 3. A Canadian street date hasn't been announced yet, but The Erasure Show Live In Cologne DVD was released here on December 13.

You'll hear acoustic versions of these old Erasure favourites whenever Union Street hits our shores:
"Boy"
"Piano Song"
"Stay With Me"
"Spiralling"
"Home"
"Tenderest Moments"
"Alien"
"Blues Away"
"How Many Times"
"Love Affair"
"Rock Me Gently"