REVIEW: Soft Cell, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret / Non-Stop Ecstatic
Dancing
In Sodom
- Joe Silva
If you were young enough and resided on the side of the pop/rock divide that actually danced some, the surge of British synth bands in the early 80s were hard to resist. After all there wasn't much hipsway in a stack of Rush and Van Halen albums, and disco's wilted lifestyle had long suffocated the music's viability. And even if the euphorically mechanistic-groove of Kraftwerk's Computer World LP was a more extant directive for the future, the chart-driven end of the industry weren't interested in acknowledging any of it unless it came through the visionary filters of the early rap community and inevitable hit-makers like the Human League.
Enter Mark Almond and Dave Ball, a Leeds duo made up respectively of one extremely gay fetishist (who got kicks telling people he was actually Simon Le Bon during one of the band's first trips to New York) and a seemingly innocuous tape-op who stood by his fey partner stoically welded to his gear.
Together they attempted to celebrate the kind of seedy downtown world that John Water's characters actually lived in. Almond crooned like he'd just come off the drag bar circuit, and Ball's knob-twiddling shifted from lush, to futuristic, to downright cartoonish. Propelled by the trans-atlantic mega-hit remake of Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love," the band's true pop aspirations were instantly rewarded. Although the album's electronics are dated and frequently insubstantial, and Almond's probably honest attempts at raunch were ultimately, their debut offered enough radio-ready material ("Bedsitter," "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye"), to set off alarm bells for music-bizzers and DJs alike.
Despite "Tainted Love"'s relativey low BPMs, the band were smart enough to capitalize on the serious dancefloor currency they had by now generated. The follow-up EP, Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing, harbored mostly previously released material re-worked for it's club potential. Included are the ultra-fetching "What?," a worthwhile re-working of the earlier "Memorabilia" single, and "Tainted Love"'s b-side cover of The Supremes "Where Did Our Love Go?." Pound for pound, almost as worthwhile as its predecessor.
Due to a mix of artistic duress (Ball was sick of appearances by this point) and pressure from the British tabloids, the strains of success could be heard in their second proper outing, The Art Of Falling Apart. Despite one fairly sound and well-produced single ("Where The Heart Is"), the record's confused content laid to rest an already stiffened U.S. market. But in the U.K. even the skewed addition of a Hendrix medley on the album didn't stop it from charting as high as any of their previous long players.
And although they continued to do well on their home turf, Almond caved under the pressure of it all and after a few stunning incidents, including confronting one Record Mirror critic with a bull whip, packed it in. Their wind up, more interesting than any of their previous work, had sparks (like "Meet Murder My Angel" and "L'Esqualita") that were consequently adopted and capitalized upon by the likes of Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys.
Poring over the bulk of this material, digitally remastered and laid out with decent liner notes, it still screams for some further bit of punctuation. Maybe it's the lack of the excellent "Torch" 12-inch (a double UK-only compilation of the 12-inches is also now available) to complete the picture. Maybe it's the finality of the box set resembling, as they do, a career's proper casket. In either instance, Soft Cell's misguided hedonism and only just maturing material is worth much more consideration than several of their contemporaries who aren't savvy enough to steer clear of packaged reunion tours and VH-1 specials.
