Dave Gahan and Soulsavers to release new album Imposter next month

Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan is to release a new album, Imposter, alongside long-time musical partner Soulsavers (aka Rich Machin).

The LP, out 12 November, will, according to the press release, “take listeners on a personal journey of 12 meticulously chosen reimagined songs from across genres and time periods, including selections from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey, Charlie Chaplin, Cat Power and Mark Lanegan, amongst others.”

“When I listen to other people’s voices and songs—more importantly the way they sing them and interpret the words, I feel at home,” Gahan says. “I identify with it. It comforts me more than anything else. There’s not one performer on the record who I haven’t been moved by.”

He adds: “I know we made something special, and I hope other people feel that and it takes them on a little kind of trip, especially people who love music and have for years.”

The first offering from Imposter will be Metal Heart. Written by Chan Marshall (Cat Power), and first released in 1998, the reimagined version from Dave and Soulsavers will drop on 8 October.

Unlike Dave Gahan and Soulsavers’ past albums which were transatlantic collaborations where the duo recorded separately and passed parts back and forth, the recording of Imposter was done live as a 10-member band at the famed Shangri-La Recording Studio in Malibu, CA in November of 2019.

In an interview with podcaster Chris Black, Dave noted, “This was the first time we were all in one space. It was kind of lucky [timing] as well… Arriving at Shangri-La every day, it was magical. We’d have coffee, go in, and work.”

Imposter, also produced by Rich Machin and Dave Gahan, serves as the collaborators’ third album, following their critically acclaimed 2015 release Angels & Ghosts and their first release, 2012’s The Light The Dead See.

The album will be released in digital, as well as physical formats, worldwide on 12 November through Columbia Records.