Tag: Neil Arthur (Page 5 of 7)

FADER Interview

10 June 2017 /


FADER is a new collaboration between Neil Arthur of BLANCMANGE and Benge, best known for his synth work with WRANGLER and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS.

The FADER album ‘First Light’ showcases the strengths of both involved, whilst evoking a purist analogue electronic sound that harks back to the first wave of Synth Britannia when acts like THE NORMAL brought technology into the punk ethos.

Neil Arthur and Benge kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about their methods of collaborating, influences and threw in a bit of tech talk along the way.

How, when and why did you both hook up together musically?

Neil: We were introduced to each other by our manager Steve Malins. I’d heard Benge’s work with WRANGLER, JOHN FOXX and his own work. Steve mentioned Benge had some ideas he’d put together initially while he was out in LA. He started sending over the tracks and I started writing lyrics. I quite liked the idea of receiving all this info, having only met Benge once briefly.

Benge: Yes I had decided to move to LA for a few months and set up a little studio there. I rented out my studio in London to some friends and with the proceeds I rented a small space up in the hills, got onto eBay to buy a few choice pieces of analogue gear, and spent every day writing tracks. Some I put out myself and some got used with WRANGLER, but I had a whole bunch of tracks that fitted together as a body of work, but it lacked something… that’s where Neil casually stepped in!!!

Did you have a shared musical manifesto for the album before starting?

Benge: Originally when I was writing in LA, I had a sound in my head I was trying to get out. It was inspired by the edgy city-type sounds of some of my favourite films such as ‘To Live & Die In LA’, ‘Assault On Precinct 13’ etc. There is a weird undercurrent in that place that got under my skin. Also living in a new city on your own is a strange experience and I think some of that came out in the backing tracks too. I think Neil’s lyrics picked up on these things without us really discussing them. I am very happy with the result.

Neil: No. Well maybe an unspoken one – all instruments must be analogue. That extended as far as possible to the artwork design. Once we came up with a design, Benge wanted the type to be set from the typewriter he owns. It took a while but we got there.

 

The press biog that accompanies ‘First Light’ suggests that you mainly worked separately on the album, was that the case and how did that pan out?

Neil: Yes, Steve sent the files he’d received from Benge. I in turn sent my efforts back via Steve. I think it worked well, in terms of getting the album finished, fitting in other commitments etc.

‘Check The Power’ is a haunting tale about OCD, is this subject matter that is close to home for either of you?

Neil: Yes, it’s happening now. There was a time when aspects of OCD controlled my life. Not just my life but those around me too sadly.

The trusty Linn Drum makes a welcome reappearance on ‘Check The Power’, is there a certain amount of nostalgia attached to this device for you now?

Neil: The Linn Drum is there because Benge chose to use it. I like the Linn and use it on my own work, it doesn’t really carry nostalgia though, that is unless I get misty eyed and wistful.

MemeTune studio has such a large collection of synthesizers and drum machines, how do you go about choosing which ones to use on certain tracks?

Benge: When Neil started sending over his vocal ideas, I was very excited because I could hear how far he was taking the tracks, into this new place that I could not have imagined. At that stage we started adding a few synth parts and rhythmic developments, and worked on the arrangements. We tried to keep the new parts simple to fit with the idea of this weird edginess that had developed.

Neil, did you ever at any point get studio envy about Benge’s synth armoury?

Neil: I was running around like a child in a sweet shop, unable to take it all in and honestly, there wasn’t time to absorb everything. The emphasis was on getting the mixes done, so we could get down the pub. I hope to return, to his studio and the pub!

Benge, was your approach to working with Neil different to (say) JOHN FOXX and if so, in what way?

Benge: I do tend to work in a similar way with people I collaborate with, in the sense that I like to have some fairly strong frameworks for tracks to start with. One problem with having a lot of options available in the studio is knowing where to start a piece. If there isn’t a strong backbone to work around, you can end up spending hours going round in circles. Although it’s still fun going round in circles sometimes.

Photo by Ed Fielding

In comparison with your work with WRANGLER or JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS, FADER sounds much more musically upbeat and melodic, was this a refreshing approach to take?

Benge: We tried to keep the tracks as simple as possible and I think this helps the album sound fresh. We also wanted the album design and artwork to keep true to a fairly minimalist approach.

There’s a strong undercurrent of THE HUMAN LEAGUE Mk1 running through this album, if you could choose a Desert Island Disc track from them, what would it be and why?

Neil: ‘Being Boiled’. I saw their first show in London and was immediately hooked. The Fast EP is wonderful. Although the song that I used to look forward to them performing was ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. Mr. Ware has quite a voice!

‘3D Carpets’ sounds a bit like if ‘Faith’-era THE CURE had ditched guitars altogether, what are your viewpoints on mixing guitars with electronics?

Neil: It wasn’t even considered with FADER. With BLANCMANGE, it’s there just like any other instrument, if it fits and serves the purpose I’d use it.

With ‘First Light’, do you feel that you’ve almost arrived full circle with the sound that you started on the first BLANCMANGE ‘Irene and Mavis’ material?

Neil: No, this is more sophisticated technically, where ‘Irene and Mavis’ is really lo-fi and DIY. There’s not a synth to be seen or heard on that EP. The nearest we got was the rhythm unit on ‘Outro’, when we borrowed Mark Cox of MASS and REMA REMA’s unit. I think it was a Roland Rhythm Arranger TR66. The rest was home found or made instruments, a cheap guitar, an organ and echo unit.

Is there any point when the seed of an idea comes to either of you where you think “Oh, this will be great for…” or are you always focussed on the project in hand?

Neil: Lyrics sometimes come along that end up in a pile marked “use somewhere else”. In general, I reacted to what Benge was sending me, although a few like ‘Liverpool Brick’ were written prior to hearing the music.

Benge: I definitely put tracks aside and save them up in categories and compilations – that’s just how this album came about, except I didn’t know at the time that Neil would be working on them too!

BLANCMANGE have been occasionally well known for their covers for ABBA through to CAN and CHIC, were you not tempted to include an electronic re-interpretation on ‘First Light’?

Neil: No, that wasn’t going to happen from my point of view. I was very happy to work on the ideas Benge sent over to me.

Can we expect future collaborations between you both and will there be any live shows to back up the release?

Neil: We did mention a FADER 2 album in conversation. Live shows, no.

Your album opener ‘3D Carpets’ was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’. TEC has it from reliable sources that Johnny Depp spent $3 million firing Thompson’s ashes out of a cannon perched 153 feet on top of a hill! Do either of you have an exotic request that could match this once you’ve both shuffled off this mortal coil?

Neil: Something pretty much like that, but from lower down, if Mr Depp is ok with it.

Benge: I wonder if Mr Depp can write that off against tax?

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Neil Arthur and Benge

Special thanks to Steve Malins at Random Music Management

‘First Light’ is released as a CD and download by Blanc Check Records on CD, vinyl LP and download on 23rd June 2017, pre-order from https://fader.tmstor.es/

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Text and Interview by Paul Boddy
10th June 2017

FADER First Light

31 May 2017 /

‘First Light’ is the debut album from FADER a synth superduo (if you will) featuring Neil Arthur from BLANCMANGE and Benge, best known for his work with WRANGLER and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS.

The obvious thing to do here is to compare ‘First Light’ with the last couple of WRANGLER albums and Benge’s work with John Foxx. What strikes immediately is that with Neil Arthur on board, this is a much softer and more melodic sound. Opening track ‘3D Carpets’ (inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’) evokes the early sound of THE CURE around the ‘Faith’ period, where analogue synths slowly started to permeate into the Crawley band’s sound.

Unsurprisingly there are no real drums here though, but there is something in the sound of ‘First Light’ that has an independent post-punk feel to it – JOY DIVISION can be heard in places too. At first glance, ‘Check The Power’ seems like a PUBLIC ENEMY-inspired title, but the lyrics soon reveal itself as a song written from the perspective of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sufferer. The musical soundbed is beautifully melodic, all interlocking monosynths and an LFO filtered bassline.

The repetition in Arthur’s lyric perfectly mirror the compulsive necessity to re-check the seemingly mundane objects in a house before leaving it, the door (is it locked?), the power (is it off?) etc. The use of the Linn Drum (which became iconic on THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Dare’ and early BLANCMANGE releases) helps gives ‘Check the Power’ its synthpop heritage which works perfectly here.

Whereas John Foxx and Stephen Mallinder’s vocals with Benge’s other projects are both deliberately dystopian and detached, Arthur’s here are refreshingly human and display a beautiful sensitivity and fragility.

The closest comparison would be with the YAZOO albums, arguably the first time that vocals with real emotion had been combined with cold electronics. ‘I Prefer Solitude’ is a case in point; centred around cyclical ‘Autobahn’ era KRAFTWERK monosynths, the song’s lyric “I’ve never been lonely, I prefer solitude” perfectly create the mental picture of someone that is quite happy with their own company and shuns socialising… possibly a metaphor for some synth players? Who knows?

Title track ‘First Light’ is a driving / pulsing song with the pitch-shifted echoed vocal sound that Robert Smith favoured on ‘Pornography’, maybe not as melodic as its predecessors, but still with enough subtle hooks to bear up to repeated listens.

Both ‘Liverpool Brick’ and ‘Launderette’ are drum-less tracks based around haunting synth parts, again displaying a human side to counterpoint the electronics featured throughout.

‘Guilt, Doubt & Fear’ is built around a hypnotic rhythmic bed which recalls ‘Warm Leatherette’; its three note descending synth part is pared down to an absolute minimum and provides a perfect backing for the song’s more improvised ARP Odyssey-sounding lead. At only 2 minutes 45 seconds, the song leaves you wanting more which can only be a good sign…

This is undeniably one of the strongest albums that Benge has featured on in recent years; the combination of Arthur’s kitchen sink drama vocals with a cold, but melodic synth underscore has created (in places) something truly magical.

There are plenty of stand-out tracks to revisit here and fans of synthpop will find much to adore. The only criticism that could be levelled is the lo-fi vocal production doesn’t always do Arthur’s vocals utmost justice, but for those seeking a sound which harks back to that of Daniel Miller’s THE NORMAL and the first incarnation of THE HUMAN LEAGUE, this is hard to beat.

‘First Light’ is released by Blanc Check Records on 23rd June 2017 in CD, vinyl LP and download formats, pre-order from https://fader.tmstor.es/

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Text by Paul Boddy
31st May 2017

BLANCMANGE You Keep Me Running Round & Round

18 October 2016 /

‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an original film by Playworks.tv exploring the life of Irish electronic music enthusiasts during the fledgling days that corresponded with the Synth Britannia revolution across the water. It recently won an Award of Merit from IndieFest, while it has been nominated for the ‘Best Music Documentary’ category at UKMVA 15.

In 1982, BLANCMANGE released their debut album ‘Happy Families’ and thirty years later, it was re-imagined as ‘Happy Families Too’. The documentary centres on the recollections of a number of men (…and yes, they are ALL men 😉 !) from the Dublin electronic scene attending BLANCMANGE’s first ever gig in the Irish capital during the subsequent tour.

It is the story of their journey, waiting three decades to see one of the bands who helped ignite their love of electronic music. The synth heads gathered include personnel from assorted local acts such as EMPIRE STATE HUMAN, POLYDROID, KUBO, THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX and CIRCUIT3. And they are all a passionate bunch who can tell their drum machines from their tape recorders, unlike some so-called electronic music journalists.

Their entertaining monologues are inter-dispersed with excellent live footage of BLANCMANGE from that Dublin gig, with ‘Feel Me’, ‘Blind Vision’, ‘Waves’, ‘Living On The Ceiling’ and ‘I Can’t Explain’ all figuring. The fact that the songs featured are all in full-length form is one of the documentary’s major strengths. This is a relief after all the song butchering and fast editing that has occurred in Channel 4 music programmes aimed at attention deficit inflicted youngsters over the last few years.

In 1982, there was very little electronic music in Ireland. Rock was God with the nation focussed on U2, THIN LIZZY or traditional music. It was a time when there was no YouTube and very few people even had a VHS recorder. So finding an electronic pop record imported from the UK was the Saturday adventure for a discerning synth inclined teenager.

Around this time, BLANCMANGE had just signed to London Records and began recording the songs that would eventually form ‘Happy Families’. While ‘Living On The Ceiling’ was to become the hit that brought BLANCMANGE into many teenagers’ homes, the pivotal track was its predecessor ‘Feel Me’.

On how the song came about, Neil Arthur told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Stephen Luscombe came round with this cassette and on it was this rhythm which was the backing of ‘Feel Me’. It was a great bassline and we blasted it in the studio through these big speakers and I did this kind of ad-lib vocal. I had this idea that went ‘feel me now – feel the pain – feel the strain’… simple rhyming, repetitive words”.

One key point made in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is that synthpop is about synthesizers, and that there is no other music form that has such a broad spectrum of possibilities within one track.

It ultimately has a sensibility that not only encompasses shiny pop but also the avant-garde and is often coupled with dark lyrical matter. “With the line ‘Your hand’s in the pocket – pocket of a friend’, it was just to get people thinking that the song was going one way but then to say ‘what do you feel?’, ‘what do you think?’… for me, it’s just a song to be interpreted or misinterpreted any number of ways” remembered the BLANCMANGE frontman, “It’s like ‘Here comes a love song – there goes a banister’, what could it be? It could be a sexual reference, it could be a reference to relationship intensity. It’s not exactly a very melodic vocal line so the intensity had to build throughout. On reflection, I always thought it was more David Byrne than Ian Curtis, but there was never any intention” 

Using synthesizers was about control as well and not needing a drummer! Arthur recalls: “We didn’t own any of the synths we used for ‘Happy Families’. We hired a Roland Jupiter 8, an ARP sequencer and a Korg MS20 plus a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer which Stephen and I programmed up”.

And it was also about unlimited creativity and unconventional thinking: “The catch on the bassline of ‘Feel Me’ is having that pick-up on the sixteenth beat coming into the one… that was the thing that got me when Stephen came in with that. It was put together with a TR808 initially using the cowbell as the trigger to the synth. That was replicated using the Linn with the bass part being the Jupiter and Korg. David Rhodes’ E-bowed guitar melody is doubled with a keyboard”

But of course, many in the documentary did not have access to this kind of technology at first, but the use of cheaper synths as a starting point allowed for punk’s DIY ethic to be applied. It was the same for BLANCMANGE before they were signed and the approach they had to take for their first release ‘Irene & Mavis’.

“Everything then had been recorded on a Sony cassette machine; we had another cassette machine purely for playback with decent speakers on it” recalled Arthur on those fledgling days, “We would take a line-out and feed it into a mono input and do the other track live at the same time. Or we would overdub by playing in the room and having the backing track playing from the extension. We combined that and a borrowed 4 track machine with varispeed on it”

The one term that keeps reoccurring in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is “synthpop”… yes, that’s synthpop, pop songs with synthesizers, NOT “dance” or “electronica”! There is an unashamed embracement of synthpop by all concerned. Now while the Acid House and dance revolution is briefly touched upon towards the end and helped make electronic music credible enough for music hacks to want to write about it, it largely took songs out of the equation. And let’s face it, those club-oriented excursions were generally pointless without the use of substances!

But course, with the return of the synthesizer in an avant pop context, it’s not about harking back to the past, but looking forward to the future. On reworking ‘Feel Me’ for 2013, Neil Arthur said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “My new version is more stripped down. There’s so many VST plug-ins you can put on top of things. Unless your ideas are good, it’s not worth it. I tried to remember what it was like in that room when I first heard that rhythm Stephen had put together. David came in to play his great guitar on it again. The vocals are my daughter, myself and a vocoder… I wanted to keep it really simple. Hopefully it still works. At least doing ‘Happy Families Too’, I wasn’t going to tear myself apart over the songs… they are written for better or for worse”

In all, ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an enjoyable hour of music history, presented in a refreshing, intelligent manner. Indeed it is the antithesis of those ‘I Love The 80s’ type cheesefests that often portray synthpop in the worst way possible, as something to be derided and mocked. In fact, it would make rather good viewing on BBC4.

With thanks to Patti Carbonell, Poppy Seekins  and Tone Davies at Playworks.tv

Additional thanks to Neil Arthur and Peter Fitzpatrick

For further information on ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’, please visit www.ditto.tv/ditto-is-running-round-and-round/ or email campfire@playworks.tv

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Text and interview by Chi Ming Lai
12th September 2015

A Short Conversation with NEAR FUTURE

17 May 2016 /

NEAR FUTURE

Neil Arthur and Jez Bernholz are NEAR FUTURE, a new project featuring the BLANCMANGE front man and the Brighton based musician, sculptor, film-maker and co-founder of the Anti Ghost Moon Ray art collective that also spawned GAZELLE TWIN.

With plans for a full-length album to be released in 2017, the first single is the delightfully sombre ‘Ideal Home’. Beginning with futuristic ship klaxons, it’s a fractured number which takes a detached dual vocal and attaches it to a steadfast rhythmic backdrop, with hints of Eno-era TALKING HEADS in its ethnically influenced textures.

Meanwhile, the sub-three minute flip ‘Overwhelmed’ has shrill strings cocooned in an aural cavern with a claustrophobic Neil Arthur lead vocal that while recognisable, is quite different from anything by BLANCMANGE. Setting the scene as an introduction to the project, Jez Bernholz kindly chatted about the genesis of NEAR FUTURE.

You opened for BLANCMANGE at the Red Gallery shows in 2015, but what led you to making music together?

Neil and I had a really positive connection when we met in London for those shows. I’d already said how much I loved ‘Irene & Mavis’ which, if I’m honest, was my first real introduction to the band when reissued through Minimal Wave.

Neil had said some very encouraging things about the experimental aspects of my music. As a result, I was invited to join them on a full UK tour as support this year and it was suggested that we could exchange some loose ideas, work on each other’s tracks separately and see what the results were.

It was all initially just a loose but interesting way to promote the tour, but it was also a nice way of seeing how our individual approaches to music-making worked together, flex our compositional muscles in a way. It’s worked out better than we hoped and we’re introducing each other to a wide variety of things outside our own comfort zones I’d like to think.

‘Ideal Home’ has an experimental air of BRIAN ENO about it?

Experimental, certainly, but Eno for me wasn’t a conscious inspiration though I love his work and studio ideas. Vocally, it’s certainly possible that ‘Another Green World’ or ‘Before and After Science’, had some kind of subconscious influence, but then, only as much as his work with JON HASSELL or DAVID BYRNE.

In the back of my mind, the vocals are always inspired in some way by Bowie so there is the ‘Low’ connection there, but it wasn’t intentional and I don’t think I ever considered it a formative part of the music. However, Neil may see things differently of course. His initial idea and field recordings laid the groundwork for the austere, detached quality, but they were rooted in other electronic histories.


How does a younger generation artist such as yourself come to discover and be influenced the original innovators?

I’m a music-obsessive. I’ve had a staple collective of artists that I’ve loved since growing up and becoming a musician.

And if you’re a nerd like me, those artists tend to have a rhizomatic effect. KATE BUSH, PRINCE, DAVID BOWIE, KRAFTWERK, the usual suspects.

I’m drawn to the certain kind of electronic sounds pioneered from the 60s, wobbling, bending and very detached, almost lonely sounds that the post-punk and New Pop artists all seem to use, culminating in some kind of golden age of experimental pop. It seemed to dispel of certain hierarchies which exists a lot in certain places now, where often you find either a kind of classist or an inverted snobbery; I like music which bridges those gaps between experimentalism and populism.

I’ve worked with some very inspiring people in other bands over the years who’ve drawn me into unusual music by ‘innovators’, those who may not be household names but are important artists. I also found that really good music journalism, those who wrote profoundly about the effect music had on them, would draw my attention to artists that someone who grew up with Britpop as their soundtrack might have otherwise neglected; ‘This is Uncool’ by Garry Mulholland, ‘Rip It Up and Start Again’ by Simon Reynolds.

NEAR FUTURE-artwork

‘Overwhelmed’ sees Neil taking the lead vocal. How do you produce a work that has his distinctive style without it necessarily coming over like BLANCMANGE?

Neil is an inspired artist and a uniquely gifted lyricist. His approach to the piece of music I wrote really reflected the contemplative sounds.

The vocal melded with the music as if it had been there all along and when I heard it I was floored.

That’s his gift and he can apply it just about anywhere.

The way that I compose comes from a very different place, and having the music composed before the vocal gave it a space to move somewhere of its own. Even though Neil and I share similar interests, our frame of reference is not the same.

What do you think you provide to the partnership that Neil hasn’t had before, and what does Neil add to your artistic ethos?

I’m not sure about what he hasn’t had before, necessarily, that would be implying a lot on my behalf. I certainly think that I’ve taken it partly down the road of early, naive experimenting, the ‘hitting pots and pans’ and reversing cassettes at slowed-down speed approach. My production tends to be quite ambient at times; I’m inspired by artists such as TIM HECKER, ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER and ROLY PORTER. That’s potentially something that will have been liberating for Neil, to make music away from the expectations of a band with BLANCMANGE’s legacy.

Working with Neil has given me a real impetus to be a bit freer, encouraged me to think more considerately but at the same time be less precious with ideas, and that’s helped the project to avoid the potential stagnation you can get as a solo producer when you spend too long overworking ideas. Neil is very inspired, works quickly, executes great judgement and as I said before, is lyrically intuitive and sensitive. It’s been a long time since I’ve written collaboratively with someone, but it feels like we are on to a very good thing.

BERNHOLZ How things are made

Your debut BERNHOLZ album ‘How Things Are Made’ was well received, how will you juggle Near Future with recording your own second long player?

Well, juggling both these projects with my own little biological project (a baby due any day now!) will be very interesting. I’ve been working on my half of the NEAR FUTURE album and my own record ‘The Innermost Surfaces In Eggshells’ in tandem, and I really enjoy it.

Sometimes I’ll be inspired to work on one as it will fit with my thought pattern at the time. They are very different in terms of mood and execution.

My own solo album is a complete departure from my debut, more like an art soundpiece rather than songs, whereas the NEAR FUTURE tracks, even though they retain that experimentation, are a lot more focussed on collaborative songwriting. It’s hard to rein in all the ideas I have floating around sometimes, I release other music as part of an ongoing ‘Consequences’ project too. I’m quite lucky that I can put my eternal distractions and procrastination to good use.

Parts of ‘How Things Are Made’ were reminiscent of DALEK I LOVE YOU; as they were heavily inspired by Eno too, this is maybe not entirely surprising. What was your reaction to hearing DALEK I LOVE YOU for the first time?

I remember ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK have drawn those comparisons before, but honestly, they’d never been on my radar before! I look forward to delving into the catalogue more, but recollecting hearing them the first time, I remember thinking, “Great!”

Are you and Neil likely to perform live together in the NEAR FUTURE?

We certainly hope so. We are discussing a few shows potentially at the moment, we just have to work out the logistics (and a set list), but we have a new song, albeit a cover, due imminently.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Jez Bernholz

With thanks to Steve Malins at Random Music Management

‘Ideal Home’ b/w ‘Overwhelmed’ is released by Blanc Check Records and available as a download single via the usual digital outlets

Pre-order the NEAR FUTURE album ‘Ideal Home’ at https://nearfuture.tmstor.es

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Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
17th May 2015, updated 14th March 2018

BLANCMANGE Commuter 23

4 February 2016 /

BLANCMANGE have had a busy couple of years, what with the ‘Semi Detached’ in the Spring of 2015 and the magnificent ‘Nil By Mouth’ in the Autumn of the same year.

The latter, certainly topped the position in the instrumental albums arena that annum, beating the likes of the mediocre ‘MG’ by Martin Gore for one. More recently, Moby said that BLANCMANGE were “Probably the most under-rated electronic act of all time”.

‘Commuter 23’ follows BLANCMANGE’s recent releases rather quickly, heralding the new era of Neil Arthur’s reign, with, no less than fourteen tracks, assuring “electronic minimalism, sharp lyrics and wintry romanticism”. The minimalism, is indeed palpable on the excellent opener ‘Red Shift (Blame Thrower)’; almost as if something from the very early HUMAN LEAGUE was transferred into the luscious musicality of today, only fresher, trashier, metallic and grabbing – especially with the echoing vocals over the stacked up synths.

The two following instrumentals, ‘Flight 2157’ and the ‘Commuter 23’ title track break up the ordinary with curious sounds describing the mundanity of modern travel. The gritty synth of the former, almost distilling in its quality, creates an uncomfortable and nervous projection of reality; while the buoyancy of the latter calms the receptors, leading to the gentle ‘I Wish I Was You’.

A true return to the roots of BLANCMANGE, this delicately mastered piece floats over with the single lyric of “I wish I was you”, repeating in a mantric pattern, bringing both calmness and nostalgia, as well as the need to break free from the ordinary. It’s a true tribute to the ambient king BRIAN ENO’s ‘Another Green World’.

‘Last Night (I Dreamt I Had A Job)’ invites with a simple guitar riff and a liquid synth, descending into sounds reminiscent of the early works of THE HUMAN LEAGUE, interspersed with PET SHOP BOYS inspired additions. The vision of having the most obscure of occupations, a six-to-two shift, consisting of packing boxes, isn’t perhaps what most of us dream about, but the majority of people do have the constrains of corporate conglomerates, even if what they actually do is described in a more appealing manner, rather than just “packing boxes”.

The sensual sounds of ‘Jack Knife’ gently descend upon the ear with an ordinary theme, according to Arthur himself, it’s a “rhyming lorry journey – all emotionless communication via cr*p mobiles, from places you don’t belong . . . loneliness”.

“So far from home, so far from home, so far, so far from home” bears a slight resemblance to Martin Gore’s lyrical obsession. The fresh beats of NEU! materialise in the instrumental ‘Elemental Change’, while ‘Waiting All The Time’ marks the transition into the über minimalist beats; slow, off the mark, ambient and almost tribal, with a dose of insecurity and fear. It’s a truly superb synth track, tying the past with the future in one seamless knot.

‘NHS’ ironically describes the “system being stretched beyond breaking point”, using the ROXY MUSIC blueprint, and ‘It’ll Pass Maybe’ experiments with synthesis and vocals with simple “no” and “yes”, canvassed upon sparse electronica, urging the listener to “experience new music”.

The cleverly titled ‘Judge Mental’ is possibly the best track on the production, jokingly laden with random lyrics like “I googled you, then I googled myself too / I thought maybe my phone is on silent”, bearing a poignant message of the breakdown in communication.

The synths, in the state no more than required, mark the simplicity and brilliance of this track, leading into the more ambient, less obvious part of the album, with tracks like ‘Scarred’, ‘St Paul’s’ and ‘Time Day_Night’. The former, being choir-based, simplistic and heavenly, is an astonishing dose of fear and hidden brilliance; the middle, with a brief vocal from Arthur, sounding better than ever, over tweeting of birds in an imaginary green open space, to the latter, with its out of time feeling.

BLANCMANGE still surprise. From the pop star, having enjoyed fame with ‘Living On The Ceiling’, through the break-up and resurrection, further abandonment and couple of excellent recent releases, including the superb ‘Nil By Mouth’, Neil Arthur still has it.

Great minimalistic sounds, interesting ambient melodies à la Eno and grabbing electronica is what is required. A true coagulation of old and new, re-packaged with poise and purpose, ‘Commuter 23’ is a must have for everyone talking synthpopia.

‘Commuter 23’ is released by Blanc Check on 11th March 2016 and can be pre-ordered as a CD via the Official Blancmange Store at http://blancmange.tmstor.es/

BLANCMANGE’s 2016 Spring Tour with special guest BERNHOLZ includes: Southampton Brook (17th March), London Garage (18th March), Brighton Concorde 2 (19th March), Milton Keynes Stables (21st March), Glasgow Audio (23rd March); Darwen Library Theatre (24th March), Hebden Bridge Trades Club (25th March), Manchester Club Academy (26th March)

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Text by Monika Izabela Goss
Photo by Hana Knizova
4th February 2016

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