Treasures from the archives of the late Suicide frontman Alan Vega and his widow, Liz Lamere, will come out in the year ahead. The first will be a solo album, Insurrection, that Vega recorded in the late Nineties, and its latest single, “Cyanide Soul,” sounds as unsettling as Suicide’s Seventies recordings. A mechanical rhythm propels its way through Vega’s and Lamere’s icy, synthy atmospheres as Vega whispers in a menacing way about cyanide. It’s just as eerie as “Mercy,” the first track to be released from Insurrection, which comes out May 31 and is available for preorder now.
“‘Cyanide Soul’ is a very special track to me,” Lamere said in a statement. “I can clearly remember recording some of the keyboard lines, and I especially remember what it felt like to hear him performing this whispered somewhat tortured vocal. Alan always performed the vocals in one take after the music was completed, and I was mesmerized by this one.”
Lamere co-produced and mixed the album, rediscovered in Vega’s vault of recordings in 2022, with Jared Artaud. They have been combing the archive since Vega’s 2016 death and released another album, Mutator, in 2021. “After we produced and mixed Mutator, we found these unfinished songs on ADAT tapes that had not been mixed,” Artaud said. “One of them was ‘Cyanide Soul.’ This track really struck me by its minimalism and its dark and haunting beauty.”
Lamere, who met Vega in 1985, recalled recording Insurrection around 1997 and ’98, between Mutator and the release of his 1999 album, 2007. “It captures the intense energy of NYC in the Nineties, rife with crime, killing, hate, fascism, racism, and moral bankruptcy,” she said. “You can hear the tortured souls floating through this album. … Vega’s intention was to experiment with sound, which would become the canvas for the poetry that reflected his vision of the universe. Often full sessions would be spent creating a single sound.”
Vega’s philosophy and life story will be the subject of an upcoming biography, Infinite Dreams — The Life of Alan Vega, which Lamere co-wrote with Laura Davis-Chanin. The book, which features a foreword by longtime Vega fan Bruce Springsteen, will come out June 18. It traces his early years and how an encounter with Iggy Pop in 1969 set him on the path to forming Suicide with Martin Rev.. It also looks at his works, from sketches he made at Brooklyn College through Mutator.
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Lamere will also release her own solo album, One Never Knows, on June 14. Artaud co-produced the album, which Lamere made with Dante Vega Lamere, her son with Vega. “At the end of Alan’s life, he was using the expression ‘one never knows’ to underscore that we don’t know how much time we have in this realm or where this journey will lead us,” Lamere said. “It was a phrase that had resonated so much for me. Alan taught me to go bravely into the unknown; to be fully present in the moment and deeply explore what is already here.”
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Insurrection track list:
1. “Sewer”
2. “Invasion”
3. “Crash “
4. “Cyanide Soul”
5. “Murder One”
6. “Fireballer Fever”
7. “Genocide”
8. “Chains”
9. “Jet Lord”
10. “Mercy”
11. “Fireballer Spirit”