The Assembly
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The Assembly was a synth pop project started in 1983 in Basildon, England, by:
- Vince Clarke (songwriting, keyboards, backing vocals)
- Eric Radcliffe (songwriting, production)
Clarke founded The Assembly shortly after disbanding Yazoo with vocalist Alison Moyet, upon completion and distribution of their 1983 album You and Me Both. The project never became a full-fledged band but resulted in only one single release, the UK hit "Never Never" (which featured a then cutting-edge sampled guitar track triggered note for note on a Fairlight CMI). Ex-Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey was hired to sing on this track. The other track on the single, "Stop/Start," was an instrumental, featuring Clarke's signature songwriting style with syncopation that gradually becomes the downbeat of the musical phrase. Clarke and Radcliffe had planned to use a different singer on each track, but none were released after "Never Never".
The Assembly marked the most-involved phase of Clarke's long-term professional relationship with sound engineer Radcliffe, who had contributed significant sonic influences to the recordings of early Depeche Mode and Yazoo. Clarke went on to form Erasure with vocalist and co-songwriter Andy Bell in 1985. Although Erasure worked with Radcliffe on some of their early work, they eventually expanded their sonic palette with producers like Flood (aka Mark Ellis). He brought Clarke and his catchy tunes back into the commercial pop limelight, for rest of the 1980s and early 1990s.
"Never Never" was re-released on cd-single in 1996 with four tracks, containing both the normal and extended versions of both the title song, and "Stop/Start". The music video for "Never Never" featured on the first "Now! thats what I call music video" in 1983
