Private View

Product Information

This neat, full circle is also reflected in the album itself, being the perfect crystallisation of four decades of Arthur’s creativity. There’s a deft marriage of futuristic electronic sounds, Neil Arthur’s unmistakable vocal hooks, and songs veer from buoyant and joyful to dark and brooding.

Private View is not a confessional album, but rather an album from an artist who knows how to use his art and talent to tell his stories and explore not only his own emotions, but also the impact of the world around him. I’d have people coming up in the pub saying really nice things, and others saying ‘Are you looking at my girlfriend? How excellent new Blancmange albums have since appeared at a relentless rate, with producer Ben “Benge” Edwards the new collaborator-in-chief.

David Rhodes and Dinesh were in hysterics, and Stephen had his back to me in his sari… I thought ‘Oh God, he’s really pissed off with me’.

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. 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. Private View is a record that manages to capture an artist who is potently in the moment when it comes to creating new work, while also being able to draw on 40 years’ worth of knowledge, experience, and built-in intuition. Register for a See account here to import your Spotify library or ‘follow’ artists you find on our site to add them to your ‘favourites’. Continuing FADER partner Benge as producer who worked on the recent BLANCMANGE albums ‘Unfurnished Rooms’, ‘Wanderlust’, ‘Mindset’ and ‘Commercial Break’, ‘Private View’ presents a striking opener in ‘What’s Your Name’; not a cover of the 1981 DEPECHE MODE tune, despite a sparse vibey start, it strums and crashes into action while Arthur uses a manipulated voice treatment to give a sense of other worldly alienation away from the indie rock track that this could easily be.Sadly, Luscombe had to leave the band due to health issues, but Neil Arthur continued on, and in 2022 he has just released Private View, the first Blancmange album on London Records since 1985’s Believe You Me. Since reforming just over a decade ago, Neil Arthur has used Blancmange to experiment with sounds and express new found soundscapes across a further ten records. 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. So I took it down the dump with a load of other stuff – including VHS cassettes of all the films I’d taped over the years. We ambled on, Stephen started the cassette player with the backing track, and I was still playing guitar at this point.

Mindset… then Expanded Mindset… then Nil By Mouth III… then Commercial Break… then Nil By Mouth IV and V, then the Fader album, Quartz… and now Private View. With plans to take it across the UK, we caught up with Neil to discuss how touring life has changed over the past four decades. 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. There’s noisy drilling going on outside the Southbank Centre, so we move inside… but it doesn’t disrupt the flow. Written and recorded by vocalist and sole band member Neil Arthur, the record marks Blancmange’s 11th studio release in as many years and sees him collaborate with David Rhodes, who laces the tracks with guitar and washes of immersive synths.Since reforming in 2011 (Luscombe left shortly after for health reasons) Arthur has harnessed a duality of experimentation and seamless pop melody to release a staggering 10 albums in the last decade. All the sounds and feels you'd want if you love Stephen's previous bands, but with some new twists and ideas keeping it fresh.