Memento Mori: there was still room for experiment

The engineer was part of the creative room

In Tape Op’s January 2023 interview, Marta Salogni described James Ford inviting her to engineer the new Depeche Mode album. She already knew his work through records she had mixed, and had mixed Dave Gahan’s Soulsavers album Imposter. Most recording took place at Martin Gore’s studio, with a week at Shangri La in Malibu. She later mixed Memento Mori at her own London studio. ^[1]

Tape as something to play

Salogni recalled bringing her tape-machine setup into the sessions, using loops, delay layers and feedback. Her account describes a small, involved team and openness from Gahan and Gore towards exploring sounds. It also remembers Andy Fletcher through the conversations of his bandmates. These are her recollections of the sessions; they do not identify the origin of every audible effect on the released album. ^[1]

The distinction helps us avoid a familiar trap in writing about electronic music: hearing an unusual sound and confidently assigning it to a particular machine. Knowing that a technique was used somewhere is not the same as possessing an isolated session track. What the interview does establish is that experimentation remained part of the process.

Listen beyond the foreground

Our suggested route begins with Ghosts Again, then moves to a less immediately familiar album track of your choice. First follow the song as you normally would. On a second pass, pay attention to the spaces around the vocal: the tails of sounds, the moment a texture enters, and the way a background layer changes your sense of distance.

Do not try to label every detail as tape, synthesiser or studio effect. Ask what it does. Does a sustained sound make the next beat feel more exposed? Does a repeating figure provide comfort or unease? A record can feel emotionally direct while remaining full of small, unresolved sonic questions.

Why this matters to the longer story

Our interpretation is that the most revealing connection to earlier Depeche Mode is an attitude rather than an exact vintage sound. A familiar identity can survive changes in personnel, equipment and working conditions while still allowing other people to bring something new into the room.

That is a more rewarding way to revisit Memento Mori than measuring every track against a favourite album from decades earlier. Listen for what feels recognisable, then give equal attention to what resists that recognition.

The studio account leaves us with a band still making choices and a collaborator helping those choices become sound. Even after so much history, there was something left to discover.