Blancmange - Biography
English duo Blancmange had a string of hits through the early and mid-1980s including “Living on the Ceiling,” “Waves,” “Blind Vision” and “Don't Tell Me.” Their popularity faded alongside the decline in popularity of synthpop although they never limited themselves to that genre’s conventions, frequently incorporating use of guitars as well as Middles Eastern and South Asian musical elements. Blancmange are comprised of vocalist Neil Arthur and instrumentalist Stephen Luscombe. Arthur (born June 15th, 1958 in Darwen, England) had formerly sung with a band called The Viewfinders and attended the University of Birmingham. Luscombe (born October 29th, 1954 in Hillingdon, England) was a musician who’d studied, in 1971 and ’72, in John Steven’s Music Workshops before playing with both the Portsmouth Sinfonia and Spontaneous Music Orchestra from 1972-’74. In 1973, he helped found the West Middlesex group, Miru Music Club, which he remained a part of till 1977.
By the late ‘70s, Arthur and Luscombe were both studying graphics at Harrow College. It was there that Arthur attended a performance of Luscombe’s group which, for the show included nine percussionists, as well as several lawnmowers and washing machines. The two met afterward and Arthur subsequently dropped into Luscombe’s place with a snare drum, echo unit, a pair of headphones, a Kraftwerk record and a desire to collaborate. They did, at first calling themselves L360. The end result of their first efforts was a moody, minimal instrumental, 1979’s “Sad Day.”
The following year, then going as “Blancmange,” the two supported Nash the Slash on a London club tour in October and November. They also recorded the alternately abrasive and beautiful Irene & Mavis EP, which they self-released several hundred copies of in 1981. Though Arthur’s vocals appear in a couple of places, what he does on the record can’t, in the conventional sense, really be considered singing; rather, he wields his bellowing Lancastrian-accented vocals like a blunt object.
“Sad Day” was included on a compilation of then-unsigned bands, Some Bizarre Album, alongside fellow future pop-stars Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and The The among other less successful bands. Its success increased their exposure and led to them signing a recording contract with London Records. Further exposure came that fall, when they were picked by Vince Clarke to support Depeche Mode on their Speak & Spell tour.
Their follow-up single was the post-punkish dance-rock “Feel Me,” released in 1982. It was a bigger success but its follow-up, the vaguely Middle Eastern “Living on the Ceiling,” provided them with their first Top Ten, peaking at number seven. Their full-length debut followed, Happy Families (1982 London), a funky electro-pop collection that boasted a high degree of musical sophistication, musically falling somewhere between the disparate likes of OMD and Shriekback. Despite its varied and leftfield nature, it was still commercially appealing enough to reach the Top 30. It also produced two more hits, “Waves” and “Blind Vision,” both of which cracked the Top 20 in 1983.
“That's Love, That It Is” and “Don't Tell Me” provided two more hits. Both were far poppier than anything that they’d released before (one could be forgiven for thinking they were the work of Dead or Alive) and indicated the direction they’d take on their sophomore album, Mange Tout (1984 London), which reached number eight on the charts in 1984. The latter single featured Pandit Dinesh on tabla and madal as well as Deepak Khazanchi on sitar, further evinced the duo’s still subtle but increasingly evident interest in Asian music.
In 1984, Arthur and Luscombe started a side project, seemingly to further indulge their taste for South Asian sounds. West India Company, in addition to the members of Blancmange, also included Pandit Dinesh, Peter Culshaw, and featured contributions from Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle and a post-Yazoo/pre-Erasure Vince Clarke on their Ave Maria EP (1984 London). The recording didn’t just rely on South Asian instrumentation, however, using more horns, woodwinds and strings than they had with Blancmange. And although much was made of its Indian flavor, it’s still unmistakably primarily the work of two white English guys.
When Blancmange returned to recording the following year, with Believe You Me (1985 London), they’d ditched most of their artistic and “world music” concerns in favor of an even more mainstream, slicker, sound. The album was recorded in seven studios with four producers and numerous guests. Despite the fact that the result sounded almost indistinguishable from the chart-topping work of The Thompson Twins, it was nonetheless a resounding commercial flop. Their last gasp was having their video for “Lose Your Love” appear in the Disney film, Flight of the Navigator in 1986, which also proved to be the year Blancmange disbanded.
It didn’t, however, turn out to be the end of Arthur and Luscombe’s partnership. West India Company continued and released a score for a Montreal-based avant-garde dance company, La La La Human Steps, titled Music From New Demons (1989 Edition EG), which was followed two years later by The Art of Love (1991 Edition EG). A few years later, however, the two were working on separate projects. In 1994, Arthur released a solo album titled Suitcase (Chrysalis). That same year, Stephen Luscombe and Pandit Dinesh began contributing music to the Channel 4 series, Globe Trekker.
Blancmange’s music never went away completely. In addition to their appearance in Flight of the Navigator, their music has been used in the video game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, an advertisement for Berocca vitamins, and the theme for the Arabic news program on Israel's Channel One. Then, after years of no material, the two members reunited in the mid-2000s, having since released 2006’s “I’m Having a Coffee” and 2009’s “Drive Me” although no album has yet come forth.
