Minimal Wave Records

From Blancman­ge’s origin­al bio:

BLANCMAN­GE star­ted life early in 1979 as the cul­mina­tion of vari­ous mus­ical li­aisons bet­ween NEIL ARTHUR and STEPH­EN LUS­COMBE.

After being in­vol­ved with im­provised and ex­periment­al music for around six years, and the de­m­ise of this workshop group MIRU, Steph­en joined Neil’s band L360 as a keyboard play­er, al­though the as­socia­tion las­ted but a few weeks. The even­tu­al de­cline of L360, and also of Neil’s garage band, the VIEW­FIND­ERS, led to the foun­da­tion of the BLANCMAN­GE one wet Janua­ry af­ternoon in Step­hen’s flat, where, with no more than a han­d­ful of kitch­en uten­sils, a few bat­tered in­stru­ments and, and a co­u­ple of cas­sette re­cord­ers, the duo wor­ked on the first se­ries of od­dit­ies and aural dis­trac­tions that were to form the basis of a se­ries of semi-improvised per­for­mances through 1979. The re­lease in April 1980 of the EP ‘IRENE AND MAVIS - THE BLANCMAN­GE’, uni­ver­sal­ly ig­nored by the press and pub­lic alike and fin­d­ing its way into the bar­gain bins with a speed hit­herto un­paral­leled, mar­ked a chan­ge of di­rec­tion for the duo. Al­though main­tain­ing the style and uni­que­ness of the ear­li­er piece, the em­phasis be­came on songs rath­er than sound ex­peri­ments. The first per­for­mance of the new music was in July 1980 at a self-organised con­cert with three other bands at the Centro Iberico, West Lon­don.

A per­for­mance in Sep­temb­er at the Brid­ge House, Cann­ing Town led to the be­ginn­ing of the as­socia­tion with the in­fam­ous Stevo, and ul­timate­ly in­clus­ion of the track ‘Sad Day’ on the ‘Some Bi­zar­re’ album re­leased in Janua­ry 1981. Furth­er con­certs in and around Lon­don in­creased audi­ence ex­posure and con­tacts and in Feb­rua­ry 1981 BLANCMAN­GE em­bar­ked on their own mini-tour of the north, and in­clus­ion on the 2002 re­view in March.

The Feb­rua­ry dates in­cluded a meet­ing with Mar­tyn Ware of BEF, and led to his pro­duc­tion of demo tapes in May fol­low­ing the sign­ing of a pub­lish­ing deal with Cher­ry Red Music in the same month. The demo tape was com­pleted at Mekon Studios, Brix­ton with Robert Doran in June 1981.

Up­dated bio avail­able here: http://www.blancman­ge.co.uk­/about