Soft Cell, Marc Almond, Marc and the Mambas - New romantic latex

Towards the end of the '70s, selective waste collection assembles plastic, polyester and latex refuse together with Kraftwerk-like experimentation and Suicide-esque keyboard touches, spawning grotesque mutants.
The minimalism of early electronics and the virile tension of certain new wave spasms are freed from every stylistic straitjacket and from any kind of cerebral restraint, burning away their spartan garments to choose the path of ambiguity, of excess, of make-up.
It seems the glam scandal of ten years earlier has been forgotten, but, in England, 1980 is about to let flow titillating trickles of homosexuality, fresh out of art schools where art means metamorphosis, self-alteration, constant provocation of a prim, hypocritically phlegmatic establishment.
These various expressions find their raison d'être precisely in the desire to escape ridiculous pretences and trumped-up happiness; and if punk screams and spits, dark-wave strides along, dark and sorrowful, while synth-pop, instead, dances light and artificial, without too many, at least outward, pretensions.
The strategy is: "Lay down your weapons and tickle the system until you trigger a nervous breakdown."

Marc Almond and Dave Ball, fresh out of Art College, seize the moment and update it, becoming The Soft Cell, a fluorescent sonic particle in the dense hive of the times.
The aesthetic is exploited shamelessly, perfectly aligned with the archetypes of gay disco-club imagery: Almond is a hyperbole of egocentrism and narcissism, vain to the point of excess, more capricious than a diva, a provocateur by nature; yet within this ensemble of oddities, a crystalline, theatrical voice rich in high notes emerges, which is reason enough to make the whole gamble worthwhile.
In 1980 the duo self-produce the EP Mutant Moments, containing sinister Alan Vega-style warnings ("Potential"), futuristic laser visions ("Metro Mrx"), zombies partying in the underground of some desolate, comic-strip metropolis ("Frustration"). Almond's self-promotional instinct drives him to distribute the record door to door, but Fate eases his labours ahead of time: the American label Sire, spotting germinal flashes of originality despite some naivety and underlying juxtapositions, decides to release the single "Memorabilia", with which the band manages to catch the attention of New York's underground circuit.

Hanging around New York's discos is just one more step towards acquiring an identity that, however equivocal and transgressive, becomes the Soft Cell trademark — the one with which, on American soil, they record their debut album for the same label, Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, laden with lascivious ambitions from the title onward. On the album cover looms a neon-lit photo of the pair, with Almond in the role of a headstrong, nocturnal prima donna, shielded by dark sunglasses and sulky, while good-natured giant Dave Ball serves as backdrop and support.
Immediately the eardrums are struck by the syncopated synthetic barrage of "Tainted Love", a cover/tribute to Ed Cobb, performed in 1964 by Gloria Jones, followed closely by an entrance complete with ostrich boa, an ironic lap-dance starlet routine in "Seedy Films".
To call what happens shortly after transgressive is an understatement: "Sex Dwarf" is a clear statement of perverse, irreverent taste, the rhythm turns hyper-accelerated, the lyrics brazen and panting, with Almond caught up in a moment of sodomy and Ball playing the voyeur; this impression finds consistent confirmation in the single's video, a red-light party of dwarfs decked out in sado-masochistic bodysuits who, smirking, threaten pleasurable lashings.
The ride on the fastest, most phantasmagorical of carousels, in the manner of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, begins with "Chips On My Shoulder", from which one emerges dizzy, limbs moving on autopilot. The majorettes can have fun mischievously swirling their little skirts around Almond on "Secret Life", followed by the fuchsia-mist-laden close of the romantic "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye".

Sire, pleased to register plenty of feedback from the debut album, as if to stoke an audience awaiting new shocks until it explodes, releases in 1982 a collection of remixes plus a few unreleased tracks. Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing is clearly a commercial operation planned at the drawing board, designed to give Soft Cell time to regenerate and make a new album, without, however, missing the chance to ride the wave they had just found.
Despite the repetitiveness, some interesting reworkings emerge: a "Sex Dwarf" whose sado-masochistic orgy is enriched with new guests and new moans, alongside a more metallic, proto-industrial "Tainted Love" fading into a medley with the previously unreleased "Where Did Our Love Go?", an anxious heartbeat of a track from Almond. The extended version of "Memorabilia" gives disco-clubs an acidic, schizophrenic dancefloor-filler, a sort of oracle for the many four-on-the-floor thumpers to come, alongside the unreleased instrumental "A Man Could Get Lost", an obsessive episode swollen with effects.
Among the other unreleased tracks, the spacey, elegant groove of "So" stands out, close to certain Ultravox experiments, as do the high notes softened by videogame-like keyboards in the original version of "What", whose extended mix, however, suffers from some redundancy.

After the sabbatical year, Almond returns to the spotlight, more composed and sweetened compared to the debut's eruption, with The Art of Falling Apart.
The record sounds slowed down and softened with touches of spun sugar, like a falling in love that this time starts from the head rather than the body's spur-of-the-moment craving. The preferred form of seduction remains the wink, with which the artist invites the listener to follow him onto his leopard-print sofa, amid languid fluttering eyelashes ("Numbers"); the romantic crisis spawns Depeche Mode-like unease on "Heat", a solipsistic walk beneath the fine, insidious rain of a sleepless night gnawed at by inner conflicts. The irresistible pull toward the erotic toy, a simulacrum of personal devotion, is titled "Baby Doll", a sort of antechamber/petting session immediately preceding a surrender in the style of "Sex Dwarf".
The title track is a Human League-style game, a "restless voice vs. simpering keyboard" version, followed by an unexpected, thoroughly enjoyable tribute to Jimi Hendrix ("Hendrix Medley"), a surreal emasculation of the guitarist within the artificiality of synth-pop.
After the romanticism dripping with lunar dust of "Barriers", it closes with the carefree "It's a Mug's Game".

Marc Almond's meteoric rise produced expectations that, in most people, would have bred frustrating anxieties. But his hunger for experience, down in the squalid underbelly of a vice-ridden New York already blighted by the first grim AIDS cases, was able to satisfy every bulimic craving for sex, drugs and self-exploration, feeding his inspiration to overflowing.
It's 1984, and the congregation devoted to the ritual of the disco is waiting for new anthems to celebrate while dancing robotically to synths and keyboards. But Almond, now confident enough to take risks, turns his subconscious inside out — full of adolescent passions and youthful acts of flattery — to offer up an album that reveals a latent rock attitude.
This Last Night In Sodom is a virile record in terms of sound: the keyboards are pared down to the essentials, the effects drawn directly from the noise of the city, as everyday and alienating as the usual intrusions on Almond's ego, in which he wallows, irritated, until he overwhelms them ("Slave to This"). With a drum pattern straight out of "Rebel Rebel", the outrageous "The Best Way to Kill" bursts in, denouncing the flimsy infatuations that had fed so much teenage fantasy in the second half of the Seventies.
Almond pays tribute to the transsexual club "Esqualita", underscoring its logo with vocal sophistications worthy of Bryan Ferry, while, on a purely instrumental level, "Surrender To A Stranger" shifts register, drawing instead on the jerky dance grooves of Depeche Mode.
As the record heads towards its close, there are attempts to soften the tone. In the same year that "The Queen is Dead" came out, Almond, playing at the adorable fragility of Morrissey, warbles like a sad, romantic soul on "Soul Inside": the result is a fretful, tender palpitation.

After This Last Night In Sodom, the Soft Cell circle seemed to close prematurely; Almond, who had already been treading parallel paths with Marc and the Mambas since 1983, and Ball, who would go on with the Grid, went their separate ways, leaving behind an aura of ambiguity that, despite every attempt at oblivion and every ill-fated emulation, would be regilded in 1998 with the release of the compilation The Singles.

In truth, the circle hadn't quite closed yet: Almond, almost invulnerable to the consequences of Eighties depravity, even while busy with solo projects and various collaborations alongside, among others, the superb Nico, still found time to honor the cult of the self and his relationship with Ball. Mutual esteem and an unbroken friendship managed to keep the old alchemy alive, and in 2002 it magically produced Cruelty Without Beauty.
Beyond his personal, newly-platinum look, Almond also gives the production a makeover, rendering it proud and self-assured alongside the fledgling electro ingenues of the new millennium, to whom he has little to envy in terms of adrenaline, erotic allure and dancefloor spirit.
The album shines right from the opening single "Monoculture": Ball's keyboard work is vigorous and Almond's voice fresh and energized, set against a counter-melody reminiscent of early Cybotron house, resulting in an immediate, robotic dance in keeping with synth tradition.
"The Night" opens with a church organ, immediately grafted onto a whirlwind of keyboards and cyber effects enclosing a vocal that plays at sliding along its beloved curves of languor, before giving way to muscular bass lines that usher in the darkness of electro-pop in the tradition of Duran Duran ("Desperate").
Firmly lodged in the delirium of a gay disco, overflowing with exasperated aestheticism and outrageous choreography, "Sensation Nation" sets up the close, followed by the small dark drama told while slinking suggestively along the damp walls of private clubs ("Caligula Sindrome").
The audience doesn't get too worked up, stunned by the whirlwind pace of electro-clash, but longtime fans return to smiling, moved and thrilled in the face of the reunion.
The force that's with him means that, to this day, Almond — caught between gossip feeding his star allure and the tribute of the new princeling Tiga — gets to enjoy the longed-for ubiquity with which he smiles pretentiously, in sync, from a badge, and plays the diva on dancefloors.

It was immediately clear that the journey through memory undertaken by Dave Ball and Marc Almond, first with the pleasant Cruelty Without Beauty in 2002, then revived twenty years later with the uneven Happiness Not Included, had little in common with the band's golden-era trilogy. Nostalgia is a scoundrel, but untangling remorse from regret is even trickier. The celebration of times gone by and of the now-departed friend Dave Ball on Danceteria (2026) offers a few ideas with a bold, inviting tone: however filtered through electronic trickery, Almond's voice is decidedly more on point than on the previous album.
After the intriguing intro of "Elusive", the title track lines up all the real and virtual icons of a now-unrepeatable era, when transgression wasn't a function of audience demand but the fruit of a genuine desire to confront and dare. The dance groove is saturated to just the right degree, and the images it evokes trace the evolution of the unbridled hedonism of an era now consigned to history.
Although it starts off on the right foot — the dance charms of "The Space Inside" and "Times Square" are genuinely enjoyable — the third and final Soft Cell comeback album, "Danceteria", doesn't offer enough creative ideas to rely on. It's more the context than the music that holds the attention, on a record that in other circumstances we might have dismissed as merely retro and dignified.
Neon lights, peep shows and nights spent in seedy clubs return to centre stage, but on "Danceteria", rather than the transgression that animated Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, what emerges is a commemorative attitude that favours aesthetic hedonism over the unhealthy atmospheres of the Eighties.
Marc Almond's desire to honour the memory of his friend Dave Ball, who died shortly before the album was completed, is admirable. It thus becomes easy to forgive the use of autotune to freshen up his voice and adapt it to the project's synth-pop textures, a choice that in places acts like a sword of Damocles, ready to blunt the record's best moments, such as the visceral, unhealthy "What Is Your Morality" or the disco drift of the album's best refrain, "Wave To America". Never more than here do the lyrics carry particular weight.
Marc Almond tells of prostitutes, of trans people on the dark street corners, of fetish, of black leather outfits, in a string of reflections on marginalization and acceptance that he has already masterfully explored in his many solo albums and in the splendid projects released as Marc & The Mambas.
At this point, it becomes easy to forgive the less successful pages of Danceteria. Undoubtedly the Was (Not Was) track "Out Come The Freaks" (with Nona Hendryx on counter-vocals) deserved a gutsier reworking; tracks like "Crackland" and "In Heaven (When I Dance With You)" are more than superfluous, almost embarrassing, and even the one romantic oasis, "The Rainbow Room", ultimately falls flat.

With Danceteria, the name Soft Cell too is finally filed away in memory. It's a final chapter that's dignified and interesting more for its lyrics than for its musical ideas — decidedly retro and at times enjoyable, but not enough to create that wonderful short-circuit the duo gave to history with three small synth-pop gems. So, let the celebrations and tributes to two musicians of noble pedigree come — but let's not call this a final masterpiece: here the only real marvel is the authenticity of a story that still commands admiration.

Contributions by Gianfranco Marmoro ("Danceteria")

Even before closing out the Soft Cell experience, Almond had already shown his desire to cross those sonic borders with his parallel project Marc And The Mambas, alongside Matt Johnson (The The) and Annie Hogan.

Two albums, both released in 1983. The first, Untitled, is a collection of torch songs steeped in existential pessimism à la Scott Walker and pushed past every restraint by Almond's flair for the theatrical. Atmospheric ballads follow one another ("Big Louise"), along with soul swoons ("Angels") and covers of the most disparate kind ("Caroline Says" by Lou Reed, "Terrapin" by Syd Barrett, "If You Go Away" by Jacques Brel). In this Babel of styles, Almond's lascivious crooning reigns supreme — a chansonnier of the underworld and master of ceremonies of occult, red-light rituals.

The Mambas' second album, the double Torment And Toreros, is even more brazenly ambitious and, above all, more inspired. Amid the grandeur of orchestra and strings, Almond conjures up an incestuous union between the Latin soul and 1930s German cabaret: a hyper-saturated fresco in which the slaughter of bulls in the arena becomes a metaphor for all the tragedies of the twentieth century. It opens bathed in Spanish sunlight: Johnson's flamenco guitar and classically-styled piano over the synthetic carpets of "Intro", the relentless pantomime of "Boss Cat", the surreal melodrama of the Brel-esque "The Bulls", punctuated by choral "olés", the flamenco-paced declamation of "Animal In You", the violin-string ballet of "First Time". Almond confirms himself as a vocalist of real class and, even more, as an entertainer: an arcane enchanter who leads you by the hand through the tunnels of the most unconfessable depression. Such as the funereal ballads "(Your Love Is A) Lesion", with crooning worthy of "Rock'n'Roll Suicide", "Black Heart", almost a Spanish-flavoured take on the Cure, and "In My Room", where the Beethoven-esque intro preludes another psychodrama (“In my room/ way at the end of the hall/ I sit and stare at the wall/ Thinking how lonesome I’ve grown/… In my room/ Where every night is the same/ I play a dangerous game/ I keep pretending she’s late/ And I sit/ And I wait…”). Elsewhere, one glimpses the first industrial fog that Almond would go on to cultivate with his friend Foetus, already present here in the nightmare of "A Million Manias"; a mood that recurs too in "Untouchable One", pure noise-symphony for souls from beyond the grave. The peak of Almond's creative madness is the nearly twelve-minute medley that stitches together "Narcisus", "Gloomy Sunday" (how could it be missing...) and a revival of Peter Hammill's "Vision", amid string spasms, jazz breaks, pitch-black riffs and organ tolls. "Torment", by contrast, is a new-romantic apotheosis played out on a bed of strings and keyboards. The curtain falls on the possessed rhythm of "Beat Out That Rythmn On A Drum", a modern reworking of themes by Bizet and Hammerstein. Completely out of step with the taste of the time (and perhaps of any time!), the album was headed for a scorching commercial flop, followed by the posthumous rehabilitation that has befallen the great misunderstood artists of rock before. When it eventually resurfaced from the black hole of the Eighties, the strange case of Marc And The Mambas indeed became the object of a cult following that has only kept growing.

Almond's proper solo career, however, began in 1984, shortly before the final act of the Soft Cell saga, with the release of Vermin In Ermine. Assisted in the production booth by Mike Hedges, who had already worked with Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and backed by a new band, the Willing Sinners, Almond updates the romanticism of the chansonnier tradition for the age of synth-pop and (post-)glam hedonism. The cover depicts him as a new-age devil, languidly draped over a wastebasket, wearing a sequined jacket in the style of Liza Minnelli, in front of a giant image of a heart pierced by a sword. This caricatural taste for kitsch, which doesn't spare pseudo-esoteric ambitions (Almond is a member of the Church of Satan), sentimentality and nihilistic sarcasm, is something of a summary of his (confused, but always self-mocking) philosophy.
The delicate "Tenderness Is A Weakness", the percussive "Split Lip", but above all the bluesy psychotherapy of "Ugly Head" and the lush single "The Boy Who Came Back" keep afloat a record in which heartfelt theatricality sometimes compensates for a lack of fluidity in the songwriting.
The real hit of the year, though, is the cover of "I Feel Love", Donna Summer's disco anthem reimagined with ironic ambiguity alongside Jimmy Somerville (Bronski Beat), who, together with Boy George, was the gay icon of the moment.

The following album, Stories Of Johnny (1985), was produced by Mike Hedges and recorded, like Vermin In Ermine, at the Haartman Digital Studios in Bavaria. It's a more assured, sophisticated work, even if it indulges in saccharine night-club ballads steeped in kitsch-tinged Europop moods. A couple of songs, including "Always" and the title track (written after watching a documentary about kids from housing-estate neighbourhoods shooting up heroin, yet another example of Almond's despondent singing), had originally been written for "Vermin" but were deemed unsuitable for that ode to the underworld.
"Lover Letter" revives Soft Cell-style electronic flourishes and carries a certain punch. "I Who Never" is a song about losing love only to go out looking for it again on the street, "My Candle Burns" is based on a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. "The House Is Haunted" is an impudent remake of the Mel Tormé track.

For Almond, these were years of crisis, breakdowns, drug addiction. A calvary documented also by EPs such as A Woman's Story: Some Songs To Take To The Tomb, Volume One (the second volume never materialized), which includes a string of covers ranging from Cher to Procol Harum, via Scott Walker, Eartha Kitt and Peter Hammill (already paid tribute to on Torment And Toreros), and Violent Silence (inspired by Georges Bataille), both from 1986, hitting rock bottom with Mother Fist And Her Five Daughters (1987). The album gathers twelve psalms of dissolution balanced on the razor's edge between resignation and hope. Pain and ill humour beneath the grotesque mask of the late-night singer.
The Willing Sinners chisel the magic of the setting — Hogan's keyboard chiaroscuro, the epic sweep of McCarrick's cello and accordion, McGee's pulsing bass — while Almond fully embraces cabaret, with a decadent indolence worthy of the Bowie of "Ziggy Stardust" and the Reed of "Transformer". The Arabic-tinged swing of the title track celebrates an ode to masturbation inspired by Truman Capote, bass phrases and piano tolls mark out the lovely funeral hymn of "There Is A Bed", but it's "Mr. Sad" that forms the bleeding heart of the record: a melodic vocal solo, at first set to nothing but electric guitar, is then overwhelmed by a forceful orchestral opening with horns blaring, before finally being whistled with a sly swagger. These are soul liturgies dripping with pathos and feeling, as are the other two potential hits, "Melancholy Rose" and "Ruby Red".
The whole record is an exhausting exercise in psychic masochism. But the cover, as usual, defuses the tension, giving us a thoroughly improbable Almond dressed as a little sailor.

In the depths of an existential crisis, the former Soft Cell man plunges with Foetus into the anguished abyss of Slut (released under the name Flesh Volcano): a simmering cauldron of industrial clangour, noise and electronic fumes. It's only an EP, lost among the countless tributaries of a vast discography — something someone else might have built an entire career on.

With the Willing Sinners halved (from a sextet to a trio, and renamed "La Magia"), Almond rediscovers his most sensual and romantic vein with The Stars We Are (1988). Bob Kraushaar's production lends it greater luminosity. Languid string arrangements (courtesy of Anne Dudley of Art of Noise) frame a crooning style now closer to that of the 1950s chansonniers (from Charles Aznavour onward), while the songwriting favours a decidedly pop approach, without giving up the usual orchestral flourishes and glam-tinged excesses.
The album's best-known songs are the hit "Tears Run Rings" — which brought Almond back into the US charts six years after the boom of "Tainted Love" — despite the political lyric hidden behind its soft string arrangements, sinuous dancefloor beats and instantly knockout chorus, and above all a cover of Gene Pitney's "Something Gotten Hold On My Heart", which Almond's vocal expressiveness and melodramatic arrangements turn into a heartbreaking torch song (later editions of the album would include the version sung as a duet with Pitney himself, which incidentally reached number one in the UK charts in 1989).
The passion of "These My Dreams Are Yours" and "Sensualist", the killer chorus of "Bitter Sweet" and the jazzy sheen of "The Very Last Pearl" are the other pillars of a record that wavers between the sublime and the saccharine, and which is remembered in history above all for the gem placed at track five, "Your Kisses Burn": a "Lee & Nancy"-style duet with Nico, her last studio appearance before her tragic death.

Jacques, on the other hand, is a tribute album to the master Brel, begun in 1986 but released only three years later: twelve songs were chosen, which find new life in Almond's voice. While recording Mother Fist, Almond approached writer Paul Buck with the idea of having him translate some songs by the Flemish songwriter that had never been recorded by other singers; the delay in its release was due to complicated publishing matters that needed resolving — permission to use the translations, approvals to obtain, and agreements to be finalized.
Among all the interpretations, particularly successful is that of "La ville s'endormait" (here rendered as "The Town Fell Asleep"), while "J'arrive" ("I'm Coming") borders on unintentional parody; the new version of "If You Go Away" also leaves a bitter aftertaste, a song already tackled on the Mambas' Untitled several years earlier.
Not everything works, and Almond himself admits it: "The album seems like a not particularly successful and vaguely frustrating work: it could have been better if I had deconstructed the songs and recorded them in a more relaxed way instead of treating them like precious, delicate objects."
Nevertheless, Brel's heirs publicly praised the record; the reviews were good in France (including in the newspaper Libération) but less generous in England.

With Enchanted (1990), the decline begins for this hopelessly out-of-time romantic troubadour, who now has to deal with the departure of his invaluable keyboardist (and co-writer) Annie Hogan and the end of the Willing Sinners/La Magia experience.
Billy McGee remains as main keyboardist and arranger, but producer Bob Kraushar would end up building everything on computer (a decision that made recording the entire LP a real slog). The record reflects the kind of music Marc Almond was listening to at the time: it's part Spanish, part Arabic, at times even Turkish. There are bhangra influences on "Death's Diary", Middle Eastern touches on "Orpheus In Red Velvet", Celtic flavours on "The Sea Still Sings" and Latin melodrama on "A Lover Spurned" (the lead single, which cost £40,000 in studio time alone).
Worth saving are the two-voice tango of "Madame De La Luna", the euro-disco languor of "Waifs And Strays" and the lump-in-the-throat Neapolitan-style drama of "The Desperate Hours", while on synth-pop numbers like "Toreador In the Rain" and "Orpheus in Red Velvet" the flame that once lit up the nights of the "erotic cabaret" seems to have gone out.
Ultimately, the real highlight of the record is the cover art, another feat of kitsch immortalising a mermaid-like, effeminate Almond surrounded by fish and aquatic plants.

Tenement Symphony (1991) is the first and only album recorded for Wea. The idea, starting with the title (borrowed from a song featured in an old Marx Brothers film), came from label boss Rob Dickens, who had planned everything out — even the cover art. Trevor Horn's production ends up burying Almond's voice in the mix, but whenever he manages to break free from the trappings of this videogame-like synth-disco, our man delivers two top-class numbers: the shimmering covers of "Jacky" (Brel), with a video by Frenchman Philippe Gaultier — complete with references to Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" — and "The Days of Pearly Spencer" (David McWilliams — better known to Italian audiences as "Il volto della vita" in Caterina Caselli's version).
The fizzy electropop of "Champagne" briefly recalls the glories of "ecstatic dance", but what truly disappoints are the fruits of the reunion with the other half of Soft Cell, Dave Ball (now with the Grid): the danceable "My Hand Over My Heart" and "Meet Me in My Dream", plus the homoerotic ode "I've Never Seen Your Face".

While Almond's studio output goes through a shaky patch, his live performances remain memorable. Recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall in September 1992, 12 Years Of Tears stands as prodigious proof of that. A true recital, backed by a dance troupe, a band and a full orchestra, spanning 14 masterfully performed songs. The ultimate tour de force is the cover of Charles Aznavour's "What Makes a Man", which, reinterpreted from the viewpoint of a transvestite, becomes a heart-wrenching hymn to diversity. Chills and tears. It takes a heart of stone to resist these songs.

Absinthe (1993) is a tribute to French chansonniers, begun at the same time as Jacques.
Unfortunately some of the translations are wordy and overwrought, and some performances a touch overdone: "The Slave" was unearthed for Almond by Pierre et Gilles, and there's even a hint of perversity in Juliette Greco's "Secret Child" (with Marc singing about his own pregnancy…); "Incestuous Love" was written by Barbara for her son, and "My Little Lover" is a poem by Arthur Rimbaud reworked by Billy McGee into a complex blend of words and music. The take on Charles Aznavour's "Yesterday, When I Was Young" is convincing. Only one song was ultimately left off, "One Thousand And Three", a poem by Paul Verlaine set to music — taken from the collection of erotic verse "Hommes et femmes".
This time French critics are left puzzled, and the record passes almost completely unnoticed.

Meanwhile, the double compilation A Virgin's Tale (1992) gathers his EPs and rarities recorded between 1985 and 1987 (much of it material originally left off Mother Fist, which Marc Almond had originally intended to be a double album), while Treasure Box (1995) is another double CD collecting B-sides, rarities, alternate mixes, demo and extended versions dating from between 1988 (The Stars We Are) and 1990 (Enchanted). It was meant to be a triple boxset, also including previously unreleased new remixes, but permission to use them was denied.

The gestation of the next album, Fantastic Star (eventually released in 1996 on Mercury, originally titled "Urban Velvet"), was particularly troubled, since in the meantime Marc decides (pushed by Stevo and the label) to check into a clinic to get clean.
The record is a grand jumble of different songs and sounds, made with a variety of producers ranging from Martyn Ware, formerly of Human League and Heaven 17, to Mike Thorne, by way of Mike Hedges, with guests including John Cale on piano (on "Love To Die For" and "Come In, Sweet Assassin") and David Johansen of the New York Dolls (his harmonica is prominently featured on the techno-blues of "Adored And Explored", released as a single with a well-judged video, loosely inspired by Paul McCartney and the Wings' "Coming Up", in which Marc, with great irony, plays various roles, turning into Alice Cooper, Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Liberace, a skinhead, a heavy-rock type and an Indian).

Open All Night (1998) tries to revive a sound that had grown a bit tired, leaning on electronic arrangements and dancefloor pulses. On the latter, a standout is a duet with longtime friend Siouxsie Sioux (the exotic "Threat Of Love") and a collaboration with Kelli Dayton of Sneaker Pimps ("Almost Diamonds"), almost as if staking a claim as the forefather of every trip-hop crooner. The two singles released from it are "Tragedy (Take A Look And See)" and "My Love", which is also remixed by faithful Dave Ball.

Almond, who in the meantime also enjoys himself behind the mixer with fun electroclash DJ sets, has never lost his taste for desperate aestheticism and a gay imagery straight out of the darkroom.
Stranger Things (2001) is another glittering boudoir of sequins and phosphorescent neon. Harps and strings, baroque flourishes and languor alternate across a dirty dozen of ballads. The "cinematic" approach of the new producer, Icelander Jóhann Jóhannsson, comes through in fatalistic pieces like "End In Tears", "Under Your Wing", "Glorious" and "Born To Cry".

Following the Soft Cell reunion, a new record arrives in 2003. Heart On Snow surveys 20th-century Russian popular song and was recorded in the former Soviet Union alongside local artists. Besides new English translations, there's also room for an unreleased song, "Gone But Not Forgotten", chosen as the lead single. As had already happened with the two "French" projects, reviews are once again largely positive despite underwhelming sales: this time Almond doesn't give up, and presents the songs from Heart On Snow (together with an interesting selection of other covers ranging from blues to Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night") in a beautiful concert held at the Almeida Theatre in London.

Over the course of the decade, Marc takes part in many collaborations with other artists: the former Soft Cell man is now the guru of a new generation of neo-romantics, from Patrick Wolf to Antony Hegarty, who explicitly names him as the main inspiration for his career and invites him to sing at his shows.
Two songs recorded with the Mekons end up on the album "Relax with Mekon": "Out Of My Soul" and a cover of Burt Bacharach's "Please Stay", later remixed by Royksopp; among the other covers worth mentioning are at least Klaus Nomi's "Total Eclipse", performed together with Germans Rosenstolz and Nina Hagen, the Papas Fritas' "The Way You Walk", sung together with French artist So, a wild techno reworking of Brian Eno's "Baby's On Fire" with T-Total, Raf's "Self Control" reworked with Replicant (under a new title, "Face Control") and finally a tribute to Serge Gainsbourg, "I'm The Boy". Marc's interests sometimes pull in opposite directions, moving with a certain nonchalance from the acoustic compositions of "Gabriel And The Lunatic Lover" (based on homoerotic poems from the second half of the 19th century) with Michael Cashmore, to the electroclash of "Smoke And Mirrors" (the work of Starcluster, which draws heavily on italo-disco and hi-NRG).

In between, though, came the dramatic motorcycle accident of 2004: Almond nearly lost his life and feared he might lose his voice following a brain trauma. On stage he apologises: "I might not be up to it." And this time the tears are tears of joy, as he takes hold of the microphone again with all the class of a seasoned entertainer.

Stardom Road (2007) is an album of covers (with the exception of "Redeem Me", which bears his own signature), on which our man, with a crooner's flair and retro orchestral arrangements, revisits some of his countless infatuations: from Dusty Springfield's "I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten" to Charles Aznavour's "I Have Lived". The record is marked by good taste and undeniable vocal talent, and unfortunately also by a few overdone moments (the Sinatra-esque "Strangers In The Night" could frankly have been spared), not to mention the inevitable flirtation with Antony Hegarty, who by now has made duetting his reason for being. A record with no particular faults, if anything prone to easy listening, and deserving of praise simply as a welcome return.

The gamble of 2009, Orpheus In Exile: The Songs Of Vadim Kozin, is instead a record dedicated to Vadim Alekseyevich Kozin, "the first true gay icon of Russian music". An artist born in St. Petersburg in 1903, persecuted under Stalin and deceased fifteen years ago, whom Almond learned about during a long tour of Russia in the early Nineties. He is the "Orpheus in exile" evoked in the title. And it's precisely from the years of exile in Siberia that many of the 13 songs chosen by Almond come: they are often melancholy compositions, small portraits of everyday life, musically in line with the most typical gypsy romances. The difference lies, more often than not, in the lyrics: love that dares not speak its name is captured in one of the collection's most moving moments, "Friendship" — written for another man. "I Love So Much To Look Into Your Eyes" is an equally passionate declaration, while tracks like "Day And Night" and "Brave Boy" sing the virtues of young soldiers at war. The bitterness and frustration over his condition hide behind the jibe aimed at Moscow in the opening track, "Boulevards Of Magadan", the most moving of them all.
While on Heart On Snow more faithful readings of the original scores often intertwined with the Southport singer's modern sensibility, here Almond is accompanied solely by the "Rossia" orchestra, conducted by Anatole Sobolev. The whole record was recorded in Moscow, across three different studios, and produced by Alexei Fedorov. One can often sense how Marc wants to make Kozin's themes his own, and it's not hard to find common ground between the Russian author's work and some of the former Soft Cell singer's own past records. The loss of youth and innocence was a theme tackled on "Youth" back in 1981, and returns here through "When Youth Becomes A Memory"; the beggar of "Beggar", a diva forgotten even by those who called themselves her friends, strongly recalls other portraits we've encountered throughout Almond's career. Not everything works perfectly. The drums feel out of place, for instance, on "Forgotten Tango" and on the homoerotic ode "Brave Boy", and more than one song suffers from choices largely dictated by a tight budget. But, while waiting for the next album of original songs, his first in nine years, one can find in this precious record a voice in dazzling form and a desire to surprise that has never faded.

The great success achieved through covers has, however, over the years, made Marc Almond an increasingly insecure songwriter. "I can't read or write music, I suffer from dyslexia and I have learning difficulties that for years made writing new songs difficult," he revealed in a recent interview, "so I'm afraid of my own songs. That's why I feel I can hide among other people's songs in order to say what I want to say." Even so, there's no shortage of gems on Varieté either, destined to be the final chapter of the artist's career as a songwriter, as from here on he will focus on other projects, covers and new collaborations — including "Feasting With Panthers" with Michael Cashmore, then in the final stages of completion.
"Varieté" is one of his most autobiographical records, and the bold undertaking here is to blend together the many ingredients that have marked his work over thirty years of honourable service, with a particular nod to his more cultured and sophisticated records. Echoes of "Torment And Toreros" and "Mother Fist" often resurface, even if this time the boldness and freshness — at times naïve — of those records is missing. The lead single is "Nijinsky Heart", but other songs stand out too, such as "The Exhibitionist" (dedicated to a bizarre, typically Almond-esque character: a "fabulous monster", "something like a bearded lady in an elegant Dior dress"), "Trials Of Eyeliner" and "Sandboy". It's a generous offering, with as many as fifteen new songs (plus an intro), but certain filler tracks fail to convince (the Smiths-esque "Unloveable" and the closing, disjointed "Sin Song"). For the first time the record smacks of craft and of repertoire — and it doesn't help that certain themes and words keep recurring (a problem that has also afflicted the work of some of his followers, Brett Anderson chief among them).

Almond has also published his first autobiography, "Tainted Life": chronicles of a dissipated life at the heart of the most transgressive clubs of London, Paris and New York, in the company of Andy Warhol, Nick Cave, Serge Gainsbourg, Madonna, Siouxsie and the colourful tribe of Studio 54.
"We were very 'now' and very nostalgic at the same time," Marc recalls. It could stand as the summary of an entire generation.

A book of poems by Eric Stenbock, given to him by David Tibet of Current 93, and the resulting realisation that he needed Michael Cashmore's sonic vision, lead Almond — always drawn to the evocative, melancholy power of poetry — to the project Feasting With Panthers. The album revisits two tracks already released in 2008 on a mini-CD, alongside an elegant set of poems by Jean Genet, Rimbaud, Jean Cocteau and Paul Verlaine, all wrapped in orchestral folk enriched by Michael Cashmore's electronic shivers.
It's not easy to tell which of the two ultimately gained more from the collaboration, but the melancholy grandeur of Cashmore's music certainly stretches across Almond's vocal cords with intense emotional depth. Between the bold, original arrangements of "Hotel De France And Poetry" and the shadowy atmospheres torn through by rage and fury on "Boy Caesar", the two musicians delight in drawing on a sonic palette far richer than its apparent stylistic calm suggests. Feasting With Panthers is an album of melancholy, delicate songs held up by organs, violins and electronic hisses, a successful and refined meeting of two poetic worlds that, drawing inspiration from pain and solitude, find the right key to an almost essential literary heritage.

Unstoppable, flamboyant, multifaceted: Almond briefly sets aside his recording career to turn his attention to multiple art forms. Alongside poetry and literature, he also makes room for theatre, first with a text written specifically for him by Mark Ravenhill and Conor Mitchell ("Ten Plagues"), which tackles the delicate subject of the fear tied to epidemics such as Aids, then with a rock-opera adaptation of "Poppea", in which Marc plays the role of the philosopher Seneca.
Music, however, never stays in the background: two live projects see him take centre stage, first performing with Marc And The Mambas in the first-ever live rendition of the classic album Torment And Toreros (with Antony Hegarty as a special guest), and then as the singer in Jethro Tull's live restaging of "Thick As A Brick" at the Royal Albert Hall.

In 2014, no fewer than three releases line up the different facets of the English musician. The first is Ten Plagues, which transfers the complex stage work onto record: Mark Ravenhill's music is thorny, demanding terrain for a pop singer, but piano and voice are nothing new for the former Soft Cell man — back on the magical, little-known Ep "Violent Silence", the artist had already pushed his interpretive gifts to the limit, in a performance many consider one of his expressive peaks.
The second record, The Tyburn Tree: Dark London, is likewise no small vocal tour de force, with Marc duetting with soprano Sarah Leonard on music by John Harle, deftly underlining the noir tone, laced with humour, of this imaginary journey into the darkest, most macabre mysteries of old London.
The third album, The Dancing Marquis, has the job of breaking the cathartic mood of the previous two releases, marking a return to pop — a choice helped along by Tony Visconti's production, which partly frees Marc from the electro-pop sheen (save for the perky "Worship Me Now") by injecting a dose of guitars and glam sounds that let him make peace again with the song format ("Burn Bright").

But it's with The Velvet Trail that the artist regains his footing in his transgressive, melodramatic style, adding to his songbook new small lyrical fantasies brimming with melancholy, romance and glitter ("Scar", "Zipped Black Leather Jacket", "Minotaur", "Life In My Own Way"). Meanwhile, another intriguing project also sees the light of day, "Against Nature", written by Jeremy Reed and Othon, which gives Marc the chance to renew his darker, more decadent side. But the surprises keep coming: while the artist is putting out a lavish anthology box set, Trials Of Eyeliner, yet another collaboration pops up, this time with synth-pop duo Starcluster, who — amid nods to Pet Shop Boys, Giorgio Moroder and, of course, Soft Cell — conjure up a pleasant sense of deja-vu.

2017 sees Almond's name back on the sales charts with the anthology Hits And Pieces – The Best of Marc Almond and Soft Cell, which precedes a new major-label deal with Bmg.
In September of that same year, he returns with a covers album, drawing from the pop songbook of the Seventies and Eighties. Shadows And Reflections, though, is no nostalgia trip: Marc Almond recasts himself as a latter-day Scott Walker — back when he was still a Walker Brother — tackling a repertoire in which Burt Bacharach and the Yardbirds run along the same emotional track, closer in feel to a concept album. The protagonist of this story is a man watching the world through the windows of his luxurious apartment, full of objects and memories, while the music underneath tries to fill his faint sense of emptiness and solitude. The sound Marc and John Harle conceived is akin to that of Sixties Italian film scores, with lush orchestration and rich, sumptuous harmonies — a stylistic choice that risks disappointing many fans of the flamboyant English musician. Even though it offers no innovations or twists (Marc has said the perfection of the originals didn't call for excessive reinvention), Shadows And Reflections confirms Almond's gifts as an interpreter, as he tackles Bacharach's "Blue On Blue" and the Young Rascals' "How Can I Be Sure" with the tone of a consummate crooner, injecting a touch of near-theatrical magic into the more sweeping "I Know You Love Me Not" by Julie Driscoll and "The Shadow Of Your Smile" by Johnny Mandel.
At times, though, the emotions stay on the surface (Timi Yuro's "Something Bad On My Mind") or get buried under cumbersome arrangements (the Action's title track), but amid fine flashes of inspiration (Billy Fury's "I'm Lost Without You") and little-known baroque-pop gems (the Herd's "From the Underworld"), the artist lines up a lovely retro soundtrack, where even Harle's excellent instrumental ("Overture") and the previously unreleased "Embers" preserve that melodramatic, late-romantic atmosphere underpinning this atypical covers project.

Having finally put Soft Cell out to pasture with one last glorious gig ("farewell show" sounds cooler, though) at London's O2 Arena, Almond gets back in the game with his twenty-fourth solo album. And he does so very much along the lines of his recent output, that is, a return to decidedly pop sounds and moods, the fruit of his collaboration with pianist and composer Chris Braide. Braide — producer for Lana Del Rey, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, among others, and therefore the ideal man to try to widen a record's appeal — had already co-written with him on 2015's The Velvet Trail, and joins him again on a very radio-friendly new track that paves the way for the Hits And Pieces compilation two years later.

And since sales are solid and the critics kind — because the British media rather like the idea of an Almond at peace with the world, happy to entertain early-morning audiences on the BBC's sofas over a nice cup of tea — after the covers album, we arrive at Chaos And A Dancing Star (2020). All with the explicit blessing of Bmg, who are delighted to see the pop star back in the upper reaches of the UK chart (indeed, for the first time in over twenty years, Marc has signed to a major for a two-album deal).
Inspired by a line from Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" ("Only those who have chaos within can give birth to a dancing star"), the record is packed with ballads/torch songs, ethereal in many moments and a perfect mirror of the artist's current state of mind. Word has it the album was originally meant to have a prog-rock bent, before the melodic pop side took over. So the sole trace of that initial approach ends up being the first single, "Lord Of Misrule", which the former Soft Cell man wrote with his friend Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull very much in mind. The odd pairing works a treat. It may be as kitsch, overblown, pompous and gaudy as only certain Queen moments can be, but the melody that results — enriched by an electric guitar solo and flute weaving through it all, with a long fade-out outro — is one of the album's high points.
There's no shortage of proper torch songs either, like the excellent "Black Sunrise" that opens the show, sung by Almond in his finest guise as a seasoned crooner, melodramatic and theatrical as only he can be. Uptempo moments are few and always kept within easy-pop bounds, like the second single "Slow Burn Love", a joyful, carefree Eighties-style anthem that even recalls the lighter side of Style Council. "Giallo", another killer gothic-style ballad, reveals a passion we didn't know about before: Italian Seventies thriller/horror cinema. Beyond the already suitably evocative title, the closing outro is a clear homage to "Suspiria" and hence to Goblin, who wrote its score.
There's no filler here ("Cherry Tree" could pass for a Kate Bush song), and it closes in glory with "The Crow's Eyes Have Turned Blue", a long suite embellished with delicate piano arpeggios and orchestral sounds, ending in a previously unheard passage set to a drum machine beat and the cawing of a crow. A sincere, far-from-obvious declaration of love for nature and animals, coming from an artist who has always loved the frantic, chaotic life of big cities and whose lifestyle has never exactly been the picture of health.

Old and wise, no longer a rebel by his own admission — let's just enjoy this Almond, still capable of giving us something to feel.

Contributions by Marco Bercella ("Stardom Road"), Alessandro Liccardo ("Stranger Things", "Orpheus In Exile: The Songs Of Vadim Kozin" and "Varieté"), Gianfranco Marmoro ("Feasting With Panthers", "Shadows And Reflections", "The Tyburn Tree: Dark London", "The Dancing Marquis", "The Velvet Trail"), Mauro Caproni ("Chaos And A Dancing Star")

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