Private View

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About everything from the antics of his 16-year-old dog Audrey to Blancmange’s early 1980s tours with Depeche Mode and the chess-playing prowess of the late Andy Fletcher.

sees our hero lost and forlorn while ‘Everything Is Connected’ offers a strange kind of eerie indie electro-funk but while not a reprise of ‘Feel Me’, it is as the title suggests, part of the lineage. 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. I thought was a mate having a laugh, some bloke saying ‘Grace Jones wants you to support her next week.This neat, full circle is also reflected in the album itself, being the perfect crystallisation of four decades of Arthur’s creativity.

Blancmange has always utilized guitar in its electronic sound, but since Commercial Break, Arthur has not been afraid to bring the guitar front and centre. These tales of derring-do on the High Seas of Synthpop seem – at first – unrelated, bouncing merrily between past and present, between the personal and the professional. Opening with a delicate piano motif before intertwining layers build to a motorik beat with Neil’s understated vocal, its quintessentially Blancmange and a fitting closer to an album that looks to the future while remaining respectful of the past. Whereas Commercial Break saw Arthur reflecting on the past, this album focuses on the here and now and plans for future. This neat full circle of Blancmange re-signing to the same label that ignited things all those years ago is also reflected in the album itself, being the perfect crystallisation of four decades of creativity.We’ve already established that Depeche Mode’s Andy Fletcher was the undisputed chess champion of early 1980s pop.

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. Blancmange vocalist Neil Arthur has been keeping busy since their 80s synthpop heyday, with Private View their 16th album. Take the aforementioned ‘Everything Is Connected’: “Hang the washing out / Do the washing up / Close the door and then lock it”. Despite it being 45 years since the teenage Neil Arthur left his native Darwen for the moderately bright lights of late 1970s London.Over 40 years ago Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe came together to form Blancmange and released their debut album Happy Families of London Records. But I wanted it to be out there as an emotional thing, and of course I disguise my lyrics a little bit – it’s not straight down the line. 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?