Chart entered : 17 April 1982
Chart peak : 65
Number of hits : 10
I'm pleased this lot got over the line. I bought this single and excepting the school punk group ( The Stiffs in case you were interested ) they were the first band I went to see.
Blancmange were formed in Harrow in 1979. Neil Arthur, a Lancastrian from Darwen was a student at the School of Art there. Steve Luscombe from Hillingdon was a printer and a member of the Portsmout Sinfonia, a musical ensemble made up of people who couldn't actually play that well. A third guy was briefly involved but we can forget about him. They played together under an assortment of names before settling on Blancmange. In contrast to Soft Cell, Neil , the flamboyant frontman was the big guy while Stephen at the keyboards was small and wiry.
In 1980 they released a six-track EP "Irene and Mavis", a limited pressing on a small independent label Blaah. There's only one real song , a cover of The Dave Clark Five's "Concentration Baby " sung by Neil in a comedy Northern accent with deliberately grating electronics betraying Stephen's background in the Sinfonia. The rest are either instrumentals or Neil's vocals are so heavily treated as to make the lyrics unintelligible. The OMD-ish glide of "Just Another Spectre " is the most listenable while "Modichy in Aneration "borrows its rhythm from Autobahn.
It didn't attract a great deal of attention but they were then invited to tour as support to Nash the Slash. They were then invited to submit a track for the Some Bizarre album and provided the stately instrumental "Sad Day". A further support slot with Grace Jones in 1981 got them noticed by the New Romantic crowd and a deal with London soon followed.
Apart from the Dave Clark 5 cover these were the first two "songs" the duo released. "God's Kitchen " is a nervy electro-funk number heavily influenced by Talking Heads particularly Neil's vocal. It plays like a statement of spiritual crisis until the pay-off line where Neil, having not found any trace of the Deity in his everyday environment declares "I think we're safe !" Sparse synth lines compliment the doomy vocals to conjure up an appropriate feel of dread. "I've Seen The Word " flips the coin by finding spirituality in the everyday life of Darwen with Neil singing in a soft croon this time over a warmer OMD -ish synth melody. Though neither track is startlingly original it's a very good single which deserved to get a bit higher.
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