Private View

Product Information

A lot of people are frightened of the future and are quite happy to have a repeat of something that was done before,” he says. years and 16 albums later, Blancmange have re-signed to London Records with the captivating and inspired ‘Private View’ , melding futuristic electronics, Neil Arthur’s unmistakable vocal hooks, and songs spanning buoyant and joyful to dark and brooding.

One of my regular walks when I lived in South London was to get off at Charing Cross and walk across Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery. This led to a career in radio, writing for various publications, and ultimately a radio show about The Beatles (Beatles Universe), which ran for over four years. Not that Benge doesn’t get involved with that, but I usually have the song structure and lyrics in place before I send them to him. It’s reminiscent of past glories in parts, evident with a vintage electronic sheen manifested in Here We Go Go, which has been on the back burner since the 80s according to Neil and is satisfyingly now getting an outing here. We ambled on, Stephen started the cassette player with the backing track, and I was still playing guitar at this point.I thought was a mate having a laugh, some bloke saying ‘Grace Jones wants you to support her next week. Brilliantly taking cues from the forest-laden atmospheres of CLUSTER, ‘Take Me’ features some wonderful piano and guitar work. Private View’ presents a collection of synthesised art-pop that finds a significant role for guitarist David Rhodes, BLANCMANGE’s very own Carlos Alomar who has regularly applied his talents with Peter Gabriel as well as a live stint with JAPAN. And Helen was away in Barcelona doing an MA in Fine Art, so I’d go and sit in front of our favourite painting: ‘Doge Leonardo Loredan’ by Giovanni Bellini. Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe started experimenting with tape loops and kitchen utensils, before discovering electronics and developing into one of the definitive chart-topping British electronic pop acts of the 1980s.

Beautiful piano, keyboards and guitar combine to make one of the best melodies Arthur has ever written. We discuss the fortunes of his beloved Blackburn Rovers, his fascination with white plastic chairs, his current favourite album (“ Waves by Low Altitude – absolutely bloody gorgeous”) and the cover art of Private View – a pixelated photo of his art student daughter, Eleanor. Private View’ comes to a close with Take Me, a double meaning that asks, “How much does someone have to ‘take’ before a relationship breaks down?

With a steadfast pulsing motorik, ‘I Tried To Be You’ features several glorious synth sections which are very pleasing to the ears.

Happy showers come and go / Migrating birds have my view / Have a pleasant trip…’ I’m sorry about this, it’s very embarrassing. When Blanc Burn emerged to great acclaim in 2011, what – I wonder – were his ambitions for the reformed Blancmange? I was thinking about the difficulties everyone is going through, and about the people that aren’t here any more. Like to make my life look super cool and exciting online, but usually found at home, with my dogs, sipping wine and listening to Nicki French! Take the aforementioned ‘Everything Is Connected’: “Hang the washing out / Do the washing up / Close the door and then lock it”.The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.