Waves And Then Goodbye

Celebrating Stephen Luscombe, 29th October 1954 to 13th September 2025.

I was very sad to read on Sunday of Stephen's passing after a long illness. Although Stephen had been unable to continue beyond Blancmange's spectacular comeback album Blanc Burn in 2011, he remained a fervent supporter of Neil Arhur's continuing journey with the band they formed in 1979.

And what a legacy, not just as Blancmange, but also as West India Company with Pandit Dinesh and Asha Bhosle. Andrew Weatherall was an early adopter.

There is an informative tribute by Chi Ming Lai over at the Electricity Club blog. I've picked a single/video from each of the four Blancmange albums that Stephen recorded with Neil, in reverse chronological order, ending inevitably with Waves.

1) The Western (2011)

2) What's Your Problem? (1985)

3) That's Love That It Is (1983)

4) Waves (1982)

I've also reactivated links to a two Blancmange compilations that I've previously posted, focusing on their 12" singles and remixes.

Just Desserts (2005)

Please Sir, I Want Some More (2022)

Thank you for the music, Stephen, rest easy.

 

 

 

Hope, Visions, Centre, Living, Seeing, Hell

Just the one video today, but it's a good one: Blind Vision by Blancmange.

Released in the spring of 1983, it reached #10 in the UK singles chart the week of 21st May.

I'm pretty sure I won't have seen the video at the time, although Blancmange did make an appearance on Top Of The Pops. it's an odd clip, to say the least. Neil Arthur does a lot of running (or singing from a lectern), whilst Stephen Luscombe plays all manner of instruments, including old school microphones as percussion, little of which you will hear on the song.

And then there is the actor replicating the 1940s housewife illustrations on this and their previous singles. Lots of creepy rictus grinning and the inevitable 'hand splatting a plate of blancmange' shot.

It's completely bonkers and completely brilliant.

Blind hope, blind visions, blind centre

One centre

Blind living and seeing, blind hell

Blind hell

Blind visions and no reasons for actions

Blind words

Blind visions and no reasons for actions

Blind words

Blind visions and no reasons

No reasons for action

In a dream when I'm reading pages full of words

The harder you look, 

It's getting hard, it's getting hard, it's not

A dream's a dream

In a dream when I'm reading pages

Pages full of words

It's, it's getting hard

It's not, it's not, it, it

It's getting harder

It's getting harder

Ooh, it's getting hard

Hold me closer now

Hold me closer

That's blind vision (blind vision)

Push me harder now

Harder, push me harder

That's blind hell (blind hell)

Keep me spinning around and round

The blind centre (blind centre)

Now I'm turning miles above the ground

That's blind hell (blind hell, blind hell)

Blind hope, blind visions, blind centre

One centre

Blind living and seeing, blind hell

Blind hell

Blind visions and no reasons for actions

Blind words

Blind visions and no reasons for actions

Blind words

Clean Your House, Figure It Out And Feel Me Now

Possibly needless to say that I've enjoyed Blancmange the band far, far more in my life than I have enjoyed blancmange the dessert.

 

I was quite happy to leave the latter in the receding mists of my childhood without any strong urge to revisit it in the 21st Century. By contrast, Blancmange's music since resuming releases in 2011 has been something to continually look forward to. 

 

There were two prompts for me this week to post about Blancmange. Firstly, I'm going on a work trip to The Big Smoke later this month to attend a conference (these days, a rare thing indeed). Travelling by train from the South West, inevitably means arriving at Paddington, which inevitably brought the 2015 song of the same name to mind.

 

Secondly, I have occasionally participated in themed...I don't know what you'd call them, 'events'? on the ol' musky dead bird. I appreciate the irony that the twit's rebrand and reduction to a single letter has forced writers in an almost Prince-like homage to add the suffix 'the social media site formerly known as'...

 

Anyway, I digress. This is my second or third contribution and I barely tweet anything beyond that, but this is good fun. This time around, the theme is #SynthPopSeptember and my contributions are developing into a mix of the old (Fad Gadget, The Human League, O.M.D.), the older-than-I-thought (Les Rythmes Digitales, their remix of Cornershop) and the relatively recent (Marsheaux).

Blancmange were an inevitable inclusion, but I've gone for something that has a foot in different time periods. Clean Your House was originally a song on 2020's rather excellent album Mindset. Neil Arthur subsequent released Extended Mindset with, as you might guess, extended versions of all 10 songs. Andy Meecham aka The Emperor Machine then went one step further and turned out a pair of superb remixes of Clean Your House, elevating the song to another level entirely. The main mix has added backing vocals, funk turned up to eleven and yes, Clean Your House is basically transformed into Feel Me for the present decade.

Not the first time this century that Blancmange has had a go at updating Feel Me, though. In 2013, Blancmange released Happy Families Too..., a new version of their 1982 debut. I like the reworked version of Feel Me a lot and it shaped the version performed on stage when I saw Blancmange live in concert last September.

 

Blancmange's most recent album, Private View, was released to coincide with the tour and you can find this, Mindset, and plenty of other Blancmange releases on Bandcamp.

Note: I'd normally embed YouTube video links in my posts. For some reason, at the time of writing this, Blogger and/or YT don't want to play ball and 'couldn't find' any of the videos when I posted the links. Technology, eh?

Please Sir, I Want Some More

Following Blancmange's shock exit from the first round of the Imaginary Compilation Album World Cup earlier this week at The Vinyl Villain, I feel it is my moral duty to present another selection by way of compensation.

This is a companion piece of sorts to Just Desserts, the CD-R compilation I put together in July 2005 and featured in a Blancmange post earlier this year. Today's selection follows a similar path of presenting 12" singles, remixes and edits. Many of the same songs pop up, albeit in different versions. 

 

Lose Your Love was the penultimate single from “phase 1” of Blancmange. I bought the 7" double pack single at the time as it included the Joseph Watt (Razormaid) remixes of That's Love That It Is - featured here - and Game Above My Head. I bought a secondhand copy of the 12" single a few years later, with an extended version which runs to over ten minutes. The version opening this selection is a shorter remix from the Canadian promo 12" single.

 

Likewise, the Instrumental/Dub Version of Blind Vision appeared on the USA promo 12" single; on my copy, this was swapped out for the full length version of Waves.

 

The literally titled Side Two is the B-side of the preceding single What's Your Problem? and is an extended, re-recorded version of Believe You Me album track 22339.  

I've included one non-1980s version, a re-edit of Waves from 2010 by Berlin-based Gloyn, which takes a bit of getting used to but is a nice way to bring things to a close.

 

Blancmange reformed in 2011, although Stephen Luscombe left shortly after for health reasons. Neil Arthur has continued to regularly release albums since. Blancmange's (by my count) 14th post-reformation album, Private View, will be released on London Records on 30th September, almost exactly 40 years to the day since their debut, Happy Families. 

 

I'm seeing Blancmange live in concert for the first time the following week in Stroud, along with regular blogosphere commenter and nearly neighbour Mike, which I'm really looking forward to. Expect a "phase 2" Blancmange selection before then.

1) Lose Your Love (This Club Mix By John Luongo & Victor Flores) (1985)

2) Feel Me (Dub Version By Mike Howlett) (1982)

3) Vishnu (Full Length Version By John Luongo) (1983)

4) Blind Vision (Instrumental/Dub Version By John Luongo) (1983)

5) What's Your Problem? (Razormaid Mix By Joseph Watt) (1986)

6) Side Two (Extended Version By Neil Arthur & John Williams) (1985)

7) That's Love, That It Is (U.S. Extended Remix Version By Joseph Watt) (1983)

8) Don't Tell Me (U.S. Dance Remix By Mark Kamins) (1984)

9) I Can See It (Single Remix By Greg Walsh) (1986)

10) Living On The Ceiling (Album Remix By Dennis Weinreich) (1982)

11) Waves (Extended Edit By Gloyn) (2010)

Please Sir, I Want Some More (1:10:30) (GD) (M)

Just Desserts

CD-R compiled 21st July 2005, collecting Blancmange "singles, remixes and side servings", and one of the earliest examples of my newly acquired capacity to rip my vinyl collection. Blancmange aka Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe emerged in 1979 and enjoyed a flush of commercial success between 1982 and 1984, before calling it a day in 1986. 

 

The duo reconvened twenty years later as a live act and a new album, Blanc Burn, was released in 2011. As a consequence of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, Stephen Luscombe left Blancmange shortly after and Neil Arthur continued as the sole remaining member. Arthur's musical output since has been prodigious, more than tripling the original duo's number of album releases, in addition to side projects with producer Ben Edwards aka Benge as Fader and son Joe Arthur aka Kincaid. 

 

During Blancmange's hiatus, Stephen Luscombe released an album in 1989 as West India Company, which featured an updated version of 1983 B-side Vishnu; there was also a 12" single featuring remixes by The Orb and Andrew Weatherall. Neil Arthur released a solo album in 1994, with single remixes by The Grid. Both of these will undoubtedly pop up in future posts.

This pre-revival collection focuses squarely on the extent of my Blancmange vinyl collection at the time. I've had to swap out the version of Game Above My Head. The original CD-R featured the (in my view) superior U.S. remix by Joseph Watt, but my vinyl rip is so crackly that I've replaced it with the extended mix that reappeared on the deluxe CD reissue of 2nd album Mange Tout. Some of the other tracks remain as vinyl rips - and it shows - but it maintains the integrity of the original track listing. 

A memory from 1982 is my 15-year old brother coming back from the hairdressers with a perm. My parents unsurprisingly went apeshit, but he eventually persuaded them it was a tribute to footballer Kevin Keegan. Personally, I was convinced he'd asked for a "Neil Arthur".

1) Feel Me (7" Version By Mike Howlett) (1982)

2) God's Kitchen (12" Version By Mike Howlett) (1982)

3) Blind Vision (Long Version By John Luongo) (1983)

4) Game Above My Head (Extended Remix By Blancmange & John Williams) (1983)

5) Vishnu (Instrumental Version By John Luongo) (1983)

6) Living On The Ceiling (Re-Mixed By Dennis Weinreich) (1982)

7) That's Love, That It Is (New Dance Mix Version By John Luongo) (1983)

8) I Can See It (Extended) (Remix By Greg Walsh) (1986)

9) I've Seen The Word (7" Version By Mike Howlett) (1982)

10) The Day Before You Came (Extended Mix By Chris Porter) (Cover of ABBA) (1984)

11) Don't Tell Me (12" Mix By Peter Collins) (1984)

12) What's Your Problem? (Extended Version By Stewart Levine) (1985)

13) Waves (12" Mix By Dennis Weinreich & John Williams) (1983)

Just Desserts (1:18:37) (GD) (M)