Back To The Future

Alison Moyet is going back to the future with an album of electronic soul. Last year Bobby Womack partnered with Richard Russell for an experimental, not trend-driven, comeback. The former Yazoo frontwoman, too, is defying the rules for a 'heritage artist' with the minutes. 

"I wanted to make something in electronica, but I wanted to maintain a fidelity to the song and to melody," explains Moyet, currently living in Brighton, of her first album in six years. "One of the things that disappointed me in the '90s was how it became so much about the beat that the voices were kinda getting crushed in nonchalantly to the point where you'd rather there wasn't a voice in there. In the early '80s' electronica, the songs were still prominent as well as the soundscapes. So I wanted to make an album that was interesting and intelligent and beautiful and filmic." 

For that, Moyet needed the "right" collaborator – and she found him in the "inventive" Brit super-producer (and harpsichordist) Guy Sigsworth, whose credits include Björk, Madonna and, relevantly here, Mandalay. "He and I are quite similar in the sense that we're both socially awkward," Moyet volunteers. "People mistake that for a lack of confidence. It's not that at all. We're very sure about who we are as musicians. And he just completely got me."

When Moyet recorded the minutes, she didn't have a deal. Labels were only desirous of signing her if she'd cut another covers collection. But Moyet was intent on delivering "a creative album". "I didn't want to have any congress with A&R men who are talking to me about demographics or what people are expecting from me – and I wanted to make an album that just didn't take on any luggage from the temperature of the industry at the moment."

Sigsworth agreed to Moyet's terms, working with her leisurely during "his downtime". "It was really brilliant. We didn't have a single argument. If you know me, that's quite a feat, 'cause I am an argumentative bint! It felt like a band. In some ways it felt like going back to Yazoo in that, at that time, there were no expectations of us and we made the records that we wanted to make. But it superseded that for me because my relationship with Guy was far more intimate than that with Vince [Clarke]. We never once tried to shape one another."

Moyet insists that she wasn't influenced by, and doesn't purposely listen to, pop music, attributing any "contemporary notes" on the minutes to Sigsworth. She embraced the freedom of isolation, her lyrics, melodies and singing "visceral" – and instinctive. 

London indie Cooking Vinyl was the first label Moyet played the minutes to – and they snapped it up (and, yes, there is a vinyl edition). The lead single is the rocky When I Was Your Girl.

Geneviève Moyet grew up on a council estate in Basildon, Essex, her father French (Alison is a middle name). An early school leaver, she trained to be a piano tuner. By night, the punk "Alf", possessing a deep bluesy voice, sang in bands. When local lad Vince Clarke, Depeche Mode's chief songwriter, suddenly quit the band, he conceived Yazoo with Moyet, then 21. The New Wavers' success was immediate in 1982 with the single Only You. They'd promptly release their debut Upstairs At Eric's, also encompassing Don't Go. Nevertheless, at Clarke's, not Moyet's, instigation, Yazoo split the next year – on the eve of their follow-up, You And Me Both. "When we worked together, we were just the wrong characters for one another entirely," Moyet remembers. "We were in very different places. He was very sore coming out of the Depeche [Mode] break-up and didn't really want to be dependent on anybody else. I'd gone from being this kind of like strange, dark creature from Basildon that everyone avoided like the plague, 'cause they thought I was a bit dodgy, to suddenly becoming very, very famous – and that's quite a tricky transition to make (laughs), to go from being black sheep to pop star in a matter of weeks. I felt upset that I had no support network within him. There was no empathy. The fact that he had very cleverly ensconced himself behind the computer and avoided interviews gave him this complete air of being mystical, while I felt my soft underbelly was completely exposed – and without any advice on how to deal with that. There was all this funny stuff going on. He's a reserved Englishman and I very much am of that French peasant ilk – I was more of a fighter. Our personalities didn't really click." 

Yazoo (Yaz in the US) was extant for just two years, but they had a significant impact on the nascent techno and house scenes. Yazoo had played the Paradise Garage. Radio DJs championed Only You's B-side, Situation, turning it into a hit ("that was bonkers"). Derrick May sampled Moyet's laugh on his Detroit techno classic Nude Photo.

Post-Yazoo, Moyet forged a distinguished solo career, specialising in soulful pop smashes like Love Resurrection – and she appeared at Live Aid. But in the '90s Moyet battled her label, Sony, for creative licence, forcing her to languish on an extended hiatus. The company rejected Hometime, "because," Moyet says archly, "it wasn't 'an Alison Moyet album'." Sony pestered her for – indeed – a covers set. The "impasse" affected the singer's emotional well-being. So relaxed – and funny – is Moyet today that it's hard to believe that she's long suffered from depression – and agoraphobia. "I was getting kinda nervous of myself because not working meant that I could fall back into those old patterns of becoming antisocial and refusing to go out again – which is really not a healthy place to be." A plucky Moyet had a shot at music theatre, portraying Matron "Mama" Morton in a West End production of Chicago. "That was an interesting thing for me 'cause I've always quite disliked musicals." Ironically, she "absolutely loved" the experience, performing in an ensemble and working every day. It would "completely eradicate" her stage fright. Hometime, eventually surfacing independently, proved a commercial triumph – it was even nominated for the Mercury Prize. 

In 2008, astonishingly, Yazoo reformed for dates in Europe and the US, promoting the commemorative package In Your Room. "It was a complete joy," Moyet extols. She'd always regretted that Yazoo never toured behind You... Moyet recalls one exchange with Clarke after their dissolution (he remixed a song for her). Decades on, they better connected. "I had become more chill – I'm much more easy to be around, I'm not so defensive – and he is just much more open. I discovered that, actually, he's a very funny person – which was a lovely thing to know... I've got a great affection and much gratitude for him." Clarke, committed to Erasure with Andy Bell, lately issued a bangin' techno album as VCMG with Martin Gore. Yet, says Moyet, Yazoo's brief reunion didn't necessarily determine the electronic paradigm of the minutes. 

The punk synth-pop idol casually disclosed to The Guardian recently that she's destroyed all the gold discs stashed in her loft. It wasn't about iconoclasm, Moyet laughs now. Nor is she ambivalent about the past. "They weren't loved, they weren't cared for, they're battered and horrible – and, more to the point, all they represent is, 'I am Alison Moyet, I've made a lot of money' – that's all they say." Besides, some of her favourite songs, and best material, didn't receive plaques. Moyet is also simplifying her lifestyle. "It's something really practical," she says. "I'm not a collector. I had started to really hate owning things. I love walking into space. I'm tired of clutter and I don't have room for it anymore." Some might flog their discs on eBay. Not Moyet. "There's something less dismissive about smashing them than just dumping them wholesale," she suggests. "At the same time, neither do I wanna be one of those hideous creatures that imagines everything about my life is something that somebody else is gonna wanna buy, therefore it must be auctioned – you must want to possess it... I'm completely grateful for my career – but money schmoney." The Nobody's Diary vocalist likewise burnt her old journals. Moyet won't be writing an autobiography (and she's had offers). "There's such an arrogance in someone in the public eye assuming that everybody else who's touched their lives are just characters in their novel. I have chosen a job that has forced me to be open about things that I'd rather not be open about. There are people in my life who haven't made that choice at all. It's like my kids all have different dads – obviously there are back stories that go with that. Would I really do that to my children – or even out of respect to ex-partners?" Moyet feels the same suspicion of reality TV as she does "celebrity" but appreciates why, in desperation, labels have used it to market acts. "However, I don't think that me going and getting pissed on telly and getting my tits out is gonna make anyone look at my art," she quips. "The only person it's ever worked for really is Peter André, isn't it?"

In 2013 Moyet is zen about the music industry. "I feel very separate to it." She concerns herself primarily with what she can control. In later years Moyet dramatically lost weight – not for 'image', but for personal autonomy. She's looking forward to touring with a fresh beat-driven live show featuring synths and computers, not "a generic band". And there will be Yazoo songs. "I'm in a far more sociable place than I've ever been," she says. "I have no fear."