The first three Blancmange albums – Happy Families (1982), Mange Tout (1984) and Believe You Me (1985) – will be reissued on CD and vinyl LP in December.
Lead vocalist Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe’s gently surreal, quintessentially English sensibilities set them apart from their synth-pop contemporaries from the start – Mute Records founder Daniel Miller memorably called them the “Maiden Aunts of techno”. As did their embrace of Middle Eastern melodies and Indian instrumentation on tracks such as the hits ‘Living On The Ceiling’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me’, which featured master tabla player Pandit Dinesh and Deepak Khazanchi on sitar.
The vinyl editions are straightforward reissues, newly remastered, in various colours of transparent vinyl (Happy Families, orange; Mange Tout, green; Believe You Me, yellow).
Vinyl and CD on the artist shop come with signed cards
The CD versions each feature bonus tracks including B-sides, extended versions and remixes. While they aren’t as comprehensive as the 2017 media book sets – all of which were 3CD sets crammed with rarities – Happy Families and Mange Tout both feature tracks previously unavailable on CD. Happy Families includes remixes of ‘Living On The Ceiling’ by Richard Norris (previously available on 2019 RSD vinyl) and Roman Flügel (first released on a 2020 twelve-inch). Meanwhile, Mange Tout includes a Honey Dijon remix of ‘Blind Vision’ which was first released on another twelve-inches in 2020. Alas, Believe You Me doesn’t feature anything that hasn’t been released on CD before. At £6.99 on the artist shop – with a signed card – this is Blancmange for a trifle.
All three albums are reissued on 4 December 2026 via London.
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By Jamie Atkins
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