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as a more“ fringe” or a“ left field” act is that the audiences that come, while they’ re not massive, they’ re kind of far better informed of the newer things that happen, you know? They tend to be happier to be challenged and the songs they consider the key ones aren’ t necessarily the ones that have been the big hits, which I find liberating.

Alison Moyet, 2017

llinois Entertainer: You don’ t come to America very often so I know there’ s a lot of excitement surrounding the Other Tour. Alison Moyet: I know, I know. Yeah, I love American audiences to start, so I’ m really

IE: Can you give us a preview of the set list? AM: It’ s an electronic tour. I come out as a three-piece, so the premise of it is electronica, which means I can of course go back to the Yaz material, which has been sort of beefed up to fit with my last two albums.

excited about this tour.

IE: You go all over the world, but what do we have that you might not find in other territories? AM: Well, for starters, I think it’ s that I’ ve never been a mainstream act there and that is a really liberating thing because having had the big solo hits in England, it’ s much harder to travel as an artist, to develop and pull people along with you. It takes a lot of re-informing and re-informing. The great thing about being in America is because I’ ve always been seen

There’ s a good base of Yaz there, there’ s some songs from the Alf album and then lots of solo and Other. There are hits in there, there’ s Yaz in there, but it’ s quite irreverent. It verges between lots of energy and grim, which is what I like. It’ s quite euphoric, but also dark.

IE: What inspired you to go back to your electronic sounds on these last two albums? AM: I really enjoyed the 2008 tour I did with Vince again. The thing with me is my voice has a lot of fiber to it, and I think

sometimes you put that together with other organic instruments, and you lose some of the shape of [ my voice ]. I’ ve used this term before, but for me singing on electronica is a bit like dropping water onto Formica. You get to see the whole stain and that’ s what I like about it. I can play with timbre, I can play with tone and these things can be very empowering on that kind of much cleaner, shiner surface.

IE: It’ s nice to hear you enjoyed your time with Vince again because when you first split company in the‘ 80s, it wasn’ t as pleasant. What was different this time?

AM: We’ d grown up. I think the important thing to remember is when Vince started Yaz, it wasn’ t with the intention of starting a group. He just split up with Depeche Mode. It was like his first marriage, he was raw, they were all raw and he felt he had something to prove because of the pressure going on. I imagine it’ s a difficult time where it’ s like you lost your family. He never knew that he wanted to record and he knew me from town because I was around and in the same class at school as [ fellow DM members ] Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore, plus I’ d been to college with Dave Gahan. Even though I was aware of