MG x CD + JL = – Cross Whisper
A bird kept tapping at the window of Martin Gore’s studio, and two days later he heard that a close friend had died. “Cross Whisper” is built around that knock: whispered voices first, Johnnie Lee’s among them, then Gore’s synths, with a hard percussive tap coming back again and again under the melody. Cliff Damavandi wrote the words after hearing Gore describe years of birds turning up around deaths, his mother’s, his dog’s, his cat’s, and the two share lead vocals and synths under the new name MG x CD + JL =.
Marta Salogni, who mixed Depeche Mode’s Memento Mori, handled the mix, and Luca Bailey shot the visualiser in Japan and England. Out now on Mute, with a limited 12-inch following on December 4 with remixes from ANNA, Regis, Vera Grace, Pye Corner Audio and boothnavy. Play it after dark, with the window shut.
