BBC radio broadcaster, writer and musician Mark Radcliffe and electro boffin, remixer and programmer Paul Langley have teamed up to create Lost, an album of electro pop.

They have created the album as UNE, which came from a shared love of electronic music, graphic design and the poetry of lyrics.

Lost is their debut album, which they describe as ‘a cerebral soundtrack of elegant electro dream pop’, and has been mixed and mastered by Jim Spencer, who has worked with New Order, Johnny Marr, The 1975, The Charlatans and Doves.

Mark and Paul met at the Builder’s Arms in their home town of Knutsford, and discovered a shared love of music, Manchester City Football Club, dogs and beer.

Mark is celebrating his 40th year in radio, and has recently been given the all-clear from head and neck cancer.

UNE made their live debut at the Loopallu festival in Scotland last year, played at the Dead Dead Good Festival in Northwich in May, and recently performed at this year’s Blue Dot festival and Kendal Calling.

They are performing in London this week and Edinburgh next month before a ‘UNE Xmas Do’ at The Salty Dog in Northwich on Thursday, December 12. For tickets visit unemusic.com

The concept of UNE came about when Mark was looking for a new way to work following many years of writing the traditional way with an acoustic guitar.

The inspiration came when he was given a book called Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders.

This listed and illustrated words from other languages for which there is no literal one-word translation into English.

Examples are ‘Boketto’, a Japanese word which means ‘gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking about anything specific’ and ‘Iktsuarpok’, which in its native Inuit means ‘the act of repeatedly going outside to check if anyone is coming’.

Fascinated by the definitions, Mark started to write lyrics with a selection of these words as the starting point.

Drawing from the book, he gave Paul a list of prospective UNE titles and told him the meanings behind them.

He then gave him Ella’s illustrations and asked him to start composing songs without words.

Initially they worked entirely separately before coming together to assemble the finished tracks.

The album features nine tracks: Boketto, Waldeinsamkeit, Hiraeth, Komorebi, Razluibit, Gezellig, Saudade, Itsuarpok and Ubuntu.

The name UNE was picked for several reasons. French for ‘one’, albeit the female version, it represented that though ostensibly a duo, Mark and Paul worked for the most part on their own.

Knutsford Guardian:

Mark Radcliffe and Paul Langley with Tim Burgess

Also the concept of ‘the one’ is reflected in all their songs having one word titles, and is also an anagram of one of their shared musical loves, pioneering Kraut-rock band Neu.

For many years Mark was the host of the Radio 1 afternoon show in a celebrated partnership with Marc Riley as ‘Mark and Lard’, and for the past decade has shared an equally successful coupling with Stuart Maconie on Radio 2 and 6 Music.

He has presented countless programmes for television, including Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie on BBC 4, and has been one of the mainstays of the BBC’s TV coverage of the Glastonbury Festival.

He has released several albums with his bands The Shirehorses, The Family Mahone and Galleon Blast, and is the published author of four bestselling books: Showbusiness, Northern Sky, Thank You For The Days and Reelin’ In The Years. His fifth book, Crossroads, was published in September.

Langley was a longtime habitue of Manchester’s legendary Hacienda, where he was a regular.

‘Signed’ to Rob’s Records, the label launched by New Order manager, the late Rob Gretton, Paul honed his recording, programming and mixing skills working closely with the Factory Records family.

Paul’s music has been released by many labels, including Music Man and BMG, and his work has appeared in game soundtracks, on compilations and in films, notably Spike Island.