Blancmange get just desserts with ‘best of’
They were among the first wave of electronic pop acts to emerge at the end of the 1970s and early 80s to really get to grips with this new sound.
Blancmange scored top 10 hits with tracks like Living On The Ceiling, Blind Vision and Don’t Tell Me.
The duo split in 1986, but Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe reunited to create 2011’s critically acclaimed Blanc Burn album.
Unfortunately Luscombe suffered serious health problems, forcing him to step back, but Arthur elected to carry on. The latter hit a hot streak of creativity which has yet to give up – he’s released a further seven Blancmange albums, three as part of Fader, and one by The Remainder, a new trio who are also supporting Blancmange on this tour.
“Yeah, I’ve been keeping myself busy doing the music,” Arthur laughs.
Blancmange are now on the road to support a new career-spanning 38-track compilation, Everything is Connected.
“It's been good fun putting that together,” he says. “I was very, very hands on with it. There's a lot of to and fro in between me and my manager, putting the tracks together. I had a chat with Stephen, who's no longer with Blancmange, but a massive part of the first incarnation of the band, and I wanted to have a chat with him about some of the tracks that are going on here.
“Then once we got the list together, we went to the record company because they have the catalogue for the old music from the 80s, and I own the catalogue of the new music.”
A return to their original record label, London, for 2022’s Private View album, helped the process.
"The album's title is taken from a track that was on the Private View album, but it seemed very apt to call this Everything is Connected, because it is connecting everything up – everything up to today and this tour up and hopefully things beyond, but also right back to the late ’70s. There's even a track from (debut EP) Irene and Mavis on there."
They play The 1865 in Southampton on June 3. Go to the1865.store.