Blancmange might have had their pop success in the 80s but the band’s Neil Arthur is producing more music in the 2020s than ever before, and the latest album, Commercial Break, might well be his best work yet. And that’s just the start of it. There are dozens of other projects in the pipeline, and even one with another 80s synth pop legend, a certain Vince Clarke. And did we mention ABBA?

Photo: Piers Allardyce

Blancmange’s story might have begun with a bang – actually quite a few of them – back in the 1980s, but it’s one that has flourished and seen most of its action over the last decade. The band, originally made up of Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe , had many a Top 40 hit throughout the 80s, mixing synths, off-the-wall lyrics and the odd Eastern influence across singles like Living On The Ceiling, Don’t Tell Me and Blind Vision.

A series of bizarre events – you really couldn’t make some of them up – helped the band’s demise and they took a long break throughout the 90s and early 2000s, eventually reforming for their fourth album, Blanc Burn in 2011. After Luscombe left through ill health, Arthur ploughed onwards, releasing a series of Blancmange albums (not to mention other collaborations – too many to mention!) exploring darker themes, instrumentals and often co-produced with the super analogue synth collector and producer-guru Benge.

We are speaking to Arthur the day after another 80s act announced ‘a bit of a comeback’, a smallish band from Sweden by the name of ABBA. Indeed their reunion is looming large over our conversation for several reasons. Not only does it give this particular interview a much lighter, contrasting tone compared to the last time we spoke to Arthur – literally a day before the first COVID lockdown back in March 2020 – to the point that, yes, it does rather feel like Agnetha, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny and Anni-Frid are leading us out of the pandemic, but Neil is also a self-confessed ABBA superfan. But not just any ABBA superfan. Legend has it that Blancmange scored a bigger hit back in 1984 with their version of ABBA’s The Day Before You Came than The Swedish legends mustered with their original version. “I’ve no idea if that’s true, but that’s what my greengrocer told me,” Arthur laughs. What’s not in doubt is that ABBA were so impressed with Blancmange’s version that they sent the band a letter telling them, (which they then promptly went and lost).