4 years in the past, Warner Information announced that Madonna, the most important artist within the label’s century-long historical past, would return to the fold to personally curate reissues of her again catalog, which has been mendacity roughly dormant since they parted methods in 2009. The venture has, mysteriously, produced little of notice apart from a remix compilation, Lastly Sufficient Love: 50 Numbers Ones, launched in 2022.
Now, although, Warner is dropping Veronica Electronica, an eight-track EP that assembles new edits of beforehand launched remixes from her 1998 opus Ray of Gentle, plus “Gone Gone Gone,” a remastered demo co-written by Madonna and Rick Nowels throughout the album’s early classes. Far from the visionary companion album—ostensibly overseen by eccentric knob-twirler William Orbit—that Madonna teased in interviews across the time of Ray of Gentle’s launch, this Veronica Electronica, obtainable on digital and vinyl on July 25, feels extra like a half-hearted money seize.
The first promoting factors for the EP are a butchered edit of Victor Calderone and the late Peter Rauhofer’s 11-minute pots-and-pans mixture of the psychedelic trance track “Pores and skin,” beforehand solely obtainable on a now-out-of-print compilation, and, in fact, “Gone Gone Gone.” Whereas the demo’s stiff MIDI beats have aged about in addition to Madonna’s Sanskrit shloka on “Shanti/Ashtangi,” the track is lyrically sharp and flaunts the singer’s then-newly limber higher vary: “The withdrawal into ache/The end result to by no means want once more/Is that this love? I believe not/I would like out.”
The demo for “Gone Gone Gone” has been circulating on YouTube and elsewhere for over 15 years, however it’s a proverbial misplaced gem with a killer bridge, and it had the potential to change into a standout album minimize. Its inclusion on Veronica Electronica virtually justifies the EP’s lofty price ticket.
Hearken to “Gone Gone Gone” beneath:
Take a look at our rating of each observe from Ray of Gentle right here.
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