electronica cinematique in retrospectum

On Feburary 7, Claudia Brücken, the femme fatale of the synthiverse, returns to the pop landscape with her luxe brand of electronic cinematique when she releases "Combined", her first career retrospective.

Since 1984, when she burst onto the scene as a member of Propaganda with the dark and dangerous "Dr. Mabuse", Claudia has dotted the charts with a few musical offerings.

Her solo album, "Love And A Million Other Things", was just reissued to critical acclaim. And before Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark reunited, Claudia teamed up with Paul Humphries as Onetwo and released their debut longplayer, "Instead".

Now, "Combine" neatly captures nearly all of Claudia's finest moments on one collection including four brand new tracks. "Thank You" is the first single plucked from it for public consumption.



The track was written with and produced by the legendary Stephen Hague who has twiddle the knobs for a diverse array of acts from Pet Shop Boys to Blur, Erasure, New Order, Jimmy Somerville and Siouxsie And The Banshees.

"Combined" presents eight of Claudia's classic recordings. Propaganda are represented by the singles "Dr. Mabuse", "p:Machinery" and "Duel". "Absolutely Immune" and "Snobbery And Decay", her two singles as one half of Act with Thomas Leer, are included alongside her two solo singles from the 90s, the hypnotic swirl of "Kiss Like Ether" and the euphoric acid trip of "Absolut(e)".

All of these singles are combined - natch! - with four brand new works including the previously mentioned "Thank You" and "Night School", a second collab with Stephen Hague. Also featured is "This Is Not America", the David Bowie/Pat Metheny classic, recorded as a duet with Paul Rutherford of FGTH. The final new track is "In Dreams", a cover of Roy Orbison's "Blue Velvet" soundtrack gem in collaboration with Andrew Poppy.

Also included are two tracks from Claudia's current ensemble, Onetwo. The first is "Sequentia", which has remained previously unreleased until now, and "Cloud 9ine", a co-write with Depeche Mode's Martin Gore.

Unfortunately, for all the great material on "Combined", there is one glaring omission - "When Your Heart Beats Out Of Time", her duet with Glenn Gregory, he of Heaven 17.

The song, which has never made an appearance on CD, originally appeared on the soundtrack to the film, "The Shape Of The Universe (A Souvenir Of Insignificance)". Considering the track is controlled by ZTT, I'm surprised it isn't included on Claudia's forthcoming collection.



However, it looks like the extended version of it will make its debut in the digital domain very shortly when Salvo, one of the world's premiere reissue labels, releases the compilation, "The Art Of The 12". Oh, those cunning linguists!

Salvo's licensing deal with ZTT, the original house of excess, continues to turn up long out of print and much sought after gems. In the meantime, the single version of the Brücken/Gregory duet remains unavailable in the realm of zeros and ones.

Here is the full tracklisting for "Combine". Some tracks make their appearance on CD for the very first time.

1. Dr. Mabuse (A Paranoid Fantasy)
2. Duel
3. (The Beta Wrap Around Of) p:Machinery
4. Absolutely Immune
5. Snobbery And Decay
6. Kiss Like Ether
7. Absolut(e)
8. Delicious
9. Cloud 9ine
10. Thank You
11. Sequentia
12. Light The Way
13. This Is Not America
14. Night School
(…Encore…)
15. In Dreams