Simenon As Producer
In between Bomb the Bass projects, Simenon continued to produce, remix and collaborate with a wide range of artists. In addition to collaborating with John Foxx on the 12" single Remember as Nation 12 (which enjoyed a measure of success in clubs and raves across the UK), other acts included Björk, David Bowie, Massive Attack, Ash, Seal, rap act Consolidated, French producer Hector Zazou, Gavin Friday and Depeche Mode.
The latter two projects would both have a major effect on Simenon. The Gavin Friday project,Shag Tobacco, not only catapulted Friday into the mainstream (spawning the track Angel which found its way onto the hugely successful soundtrack of the Romeo & Juliet movie), but also caught the attention of a pair of British musicians on the look out for a new producer: Dave Gahan and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode. Says Gahan, "There was loads of names being thrown at us (to produce Depeche Mode's next album after Songs of Faith and Devotion), but in the end we picked (Simenon) because Martin (Gore) and I really liked the Gavin Friday album that he did. Shag Tobacco is an absolutely brilliant album, (and) we really loved the sounds he produced."
As a result, Simenon was brought on board to produce what would become Depeche Mode's first album without multi-instrumentalist and production-strong Alan Wilder, Ultra; a project that would demand eighteen months, due to worsening divisions within the band acerbated by Dave Gahan's battle with heroin addiction. Upon release, the album went straight into the UK charts at number one, selling 40,000 copies in its first week of release, and launched a number of singles, including Barrel of a Gun, It's No Good, and Home However, despite being a hit and going on to achieve over three million sales worldwide, the project would have another - less positive - effect on Simenon.
Quoted in the biography, Depeche Mode: Black Celebration by Steve Malins, Simenon confessed, "I just felt f*cked by the end of the recording, and I carried on working in January and February 1997, which was the worst thing I could have done. I started to feel really ill. So I took a break and had a few months off. I was just mentally and physically exhausted."
The work in question, which took the form of recording sessions with Jack Dangers from Meat Beat Manifesto (which later surfaced as the Tracks EP) would - with the exception of a further single with Depeche Mode, Only When I Lose Myself - be the last Bomb the Bass outing for many years. "It’d been non-stop for more than 10 years, and I was just burnt out. It all just caught up, and took its toll; just left me feeling very, very uninspired." Stepping down, Simenon moved to Amsterdam and took what would become an extended break; diverting some of his attention into setting up and running the independent Electric Tones label.
Launched in 2000 as an outlet for "electronic and left-field releases", the label was initially designed to showcase acts Simenon thought deserved attention, however, he has also contributed several tracks to Electric Tones compilations under his experimental alias, Flow Creator.
The following year, Simenon was nominated for an Ivor Novello for his work on the theme to the BBC TV series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) alongside David Arnold.
Read more about this topic: Tim Simenon