Depeche Mode, Martin Gore releases new single: listen to “Cross Whisper”

A new single from Martin Gore. The co-founder of Depeche Mode has released “Cross Whisper” together with artist and lyricist Cliff Damavandi, featuring his daughter on vocals. The track was inspired by a conversation about death and some inexplicable encounters with birds. Released by Mute, the song comes with a visualizer (see below), while the 12-inch vinyl edition is due on December 4, 2026.

The collaboration

The spark for the collaboration was a story Gore told during an evening out with friends. “I was out with some friends and we started talking about death”, the musician recalls. “I told them that every time someone close to me has died, birds have started appearing; sometimes they'd show up every day, for a year, outside my window”. Among the episodes that stuck in his memory is one of a bird that started pecking furiously at his studio window. Two days later, Gore learned that a dear friend had died. Coincidences that led him to ponder the symbolic meaning of birds, often interpreted as messengers or omens.
Damavandi, struck by the story, turned those suggestions into lyrics, which Gore then set to music. “While Martin was telling his story, he was so caught up in it that I could not only hear it, but feel it too”, the lyricist explains. “There was something else, something foreign, that pushed me to write those words”.

Depeche Mode on hold

On the Depeche Mode front, no new studio album has been announced for now. The latest remains “Memento Mori“, released in March 2023, the first since the passing of Andy Fletcher. December 2025 instead brought the live album “Memento Mori: Mexico City”, accompanied by four previously unreleased tracks from the same album's sessions: “Survive”, “Life 2.0”, “Give Yourself To Me” and “In The End”.
In March 2026 the duo also contributed to the charity compilation “HELP(2)” with a cover of “Universal Soldier” by Buffy Sainte-Marie. In a recent interview with NME, frontman Dave Gahan explained that he had spoken with Martin Gore, but that new music from the band was not on the cards at the time. He did, however, leave open the possibility of working together again.

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