Look closely at the cover of I SAY I SAY I SAY and, deep in the moonlit forest, beyond the still lake, you'll see a castle. This is a place of magic, mystery, fantasy and adventure; where time stands still and dreams come true. Who knows what lies beneath those dark turrets, or inside those impenetrable walls?
Of course, this is all completely irrelevant to what I'm about to write concerning Vince's new studio, where I SAY I SAY I SAY was polished to perfection and the new album is taking shape as I type these words. It's just that I couldn't think of any other way of starting this article. Sad, isn't it? Well, perhaps not entirely.
You see, Vince is now resident in the UK once again, and he's brought all of his incredible synthesisers back with him. Their new home is a building which really does take your breath away; something completely fantastic and out-of-the-ordinary, and somewhere most of us could only dream of walking into, let alone recording a top chart album. So perhaps the fairytale analogy isn't that far from the truth after all.
My visits to Vince's studios are becoming quite regular now - it seems only a few months since I prowled round his small recording sanctuary in Amsterdam with a recording Walkman and notepad. In fact, it was two and a half years ago. The new Erasure powerhouse is a very different affair from the long, thin control room lined wall-to-wall with huge analogue synths in Amsterdam. It's a dome. A bloody huge dome, at that.
"It was actually built by digging a large semicircular hole in the ground and inflating a big balloon in it," explains Vince, leading me inside the complex. "Then the balloon was covered with a concrete and metal structure to get the shape, and the builders finished it off from there, topping it all with a copper roof."
The result makes the bridge of the Starship Enterprise look like a Fisher Price toy. This is construction at its most innovative, daring and space-age. The complex actually houses a large circular control room, where all the main equipment resides, a small kitchen, a vocal booth where Andy could wail to his heart's content, and an underground storeroom for all the gear Erasure keep in storage just in case they ever need it again. There's even an Erasure 'welcome' doormat at the electronically-operated front door.
The inside is finished in grey steel with dark blue livery, all lit by banks of spotlights. And instead of the synths lining the walls of a large shoebox, they now encircle a central mixing and recording area. The shape of the room means that Vince can scud between all the equipment on his swivel chair with the minimum of hassle, plugging and unplugging patch cords left, right and centre.
A huge skylight in the top of the dome floods the room with natural light - very important if you spend hours in a studio and don't want to come out resembling a tablecloth that's been washed in Ariel Ultra-and the roof is panelled with special acoustic structures that minimise the strange echoes and reflections found in a circular room. Even the monitoring system is unique, having been specially made with valve amplification to suit Erasure's rich, powerful analogue sound. Everything in this room is special, hand finished down to the last nut and bolt, and it shows. After all, the whole thing took over four years to design and build.
"I've been waiting to get this place up and running for ages," sighs Vincent, gazing at his glowing synths with fatherly pride. "The whole place is linked by parallel patch cord lines with a central patch bay, so I can use the LFO from one synth to modulate another one at the other side of the room, & so on. It means that we don't have miles of cable trailing everywhere.
"I haven't actually bought that much gear since Amsterdam - we'd have trouble finding somewhere to put it, to be honest! But I did dig up a gem of an old Buchla modular synth, and Tony Wride made me this superb six-channel analogue synth which we used constantly on I SAY I SAY I SAY. It's invaluable for getting all the parts in a drum pattern, for example, up and running at the same time. And I've got an old Studer analogue half-inch mastering machine now, which is superb.
"To be honest, the room sounds fantastic. I have no problems with mixing anything in here, and ifs a real luxury to be able to wander in and out of the house while I'm working too. It's a really pleasant place to work in, with all my gear in one place and in one formation."
When you spend as much time recording in your studio as Vince Clarke does, it has to be more than an electronic facility - it has to be a second home. Vince's dome - and no, I'm afraid I can't tell you where it is, even if you did bribe me with money and sordid favours (although don't let that stop you from trying!) - is just that. And, in keeping with any well designed, comfortable environment, its character directly reflects that of its owner. Modem yet warm, full of character, and slightly wacky to boot. I still don't know what to get him as a house-warming present, though…