Alison Moyet on the Other side

Alison Moyet has got her groove back. Deep into her fourth decade as an internationally renowned performer, the British singer with the husky contralto voice has suffered her share of challenges along the way, including depression, chronic agoraphobia, record-company litigation and the stifling weight of commercial expectations. Now, at the age of 56, she is making the most emotionally raw and boldly experimental music of her career. Moyet's 2013 album, The Minutes , which drew on the starkly electronic style of her 1980s synth-pop roots, became her first British Top 5 chart hit in 26 years. It was a collaboration with producer Guy Sigsworth, whose previous credits include work with Madonna and Björk. Now, Sigsworth has reunited with Moyet on a terrific new album, Other , a sophisticated mix of techno torch songs and richly poetic lyrics. “Guy really gets me,” Moyet says. “We need very little dialogue – I don’t have to explain myself and I don’t really edit him either. And he’s not frightened about making a non-mainstream record with someone who has been a part of the mainstream. With middle-aged women, there’s an assumption of this asinine, edgeless presence that people seem to want from you. I’ve had to fight that for a long time.” Other is a part of Moyet's ongoing midlife reboot that began about a decade ago when she ended her contract with a major record label, lost a dramatic amount of weight and briefly reunited with her old Yazoo partner, Vince Clark. Refreshed and revitalised, she returned to solo recording with album The Minutes . Around the same time, she and her second husband David Ballard relocated to the bustling bohemian city of Brighton, on the south coast of England, after decades of a reclusive existence in a grand country house. “Brighton has been really good for me,” Moyet says. “My only sorrow is that I wasn’t brave enough to leave the fortress that I’d made for myself for 30 years. I feel a part of the fabric of the city, I fit in here. I love to see the eccentricity that is welcome in this place, the acceptance of all kinds of diversity.” Downsizing and relocating to a smaller urban home forced Moyet to get rid of masses of accumulated career memorabilia, including the gold discs from her 1980s prime. But she has no regrets. In fact, she argues, it was liberating. “I didn’t really have the room for this stuff but also I’ve never been one for living on past glories anyway,” she adds. “I don’t need to know I sold a lot of records in the 1980s, I remember. I don’t want to have to force all this stuff on my kids and then they feel guilty about throwing it all away themselves. I just refuse to live in the past.” Moyet grew up in a working-class family in Basildon, a concrete-jungle new town east of London, where she attended school with several future members of Depeche Mode. Andrew “Fletch” Fletcher from the electro-rock titans once told me that he used to be scared of challenging Moyet in case she punched him. “No, Fletch is just a big wuss,” she says with a laugh. “They’re very English and I come from a peasant family. I was built to pull a cart. I grew up in a quarrelsome family – I really enjoy debates and fights. But I was also in bands around the punk scene, so I learnt to be verbally aggressive. You learn very quickly that a mad woman is much scarier than a mad man.” By fateful coincidence, Depeche Mode's split with original songwriter Vince Clarke in 1981 gave Moyet her first big break. Clarke invited her to join Yazoo and a string of classic synth-pop hit singles followed – including Only You and Don't Go – but the pair's fractious partnership unravelled after only two albums. Only 25 years later, during their reunion tour, did the estranged bandmates finally bond as friends. “I wanted to do that reunion in 2008 because I’d never performed our second album live,” Moyet says. “So that was unfinished business. When we came together then, Vince had chilled out and I had chilled out – it was really nice.” Looking back at her 20-year-old self, Moyet admits pop fame probably came too soon and she was poorly equipped to deal with it. “I think I’m easier to work with now,” she says with a laugh. “There was a time when I wasn’t, just because I was so neurotic and paranoid. “But now I don’t need my hand holding, I’m happy to do stuff on my own, I travel by public transport – I am really enjoying the invisibility of middle age.” artslife@thenational.ae

Alison Moyet on the Other side

British singer Alison Moyet, whose latest album, Other, was released this month, tells us about her midlife reboot, the short-lived Yazoo reunion and moving on from past glories.