A sad day indeed: this is the first song I heard by Blancmange – and now stands now as a poignant elegy for Stephen Luscombe.

He was one half of the duo who got together in Harrow in 1979, just as the New Wave was starting to produce a new generation of DIY electro bands.

Together with Neil Arthur (and, for a short while, drummer Laurence Stevens, who would be replaced by a drum machine), they were a fixture in the early-’80s charts with singles including Living On The Ceiling, Waves, Blind Vision and Don’t Tell Me.

The duo split in 1986 and reunited in 2011, only for Luscombe to have to retire due to ill health, leaving Arthur to continue to release music under the Blancmange name for the remainder of the decade and beyond.

Originally called L360, Blancmange received immediate recognition when they sent the song Sad Day to DJ Stevo, who included it on Some Bizarre Album, the 1981 compilation of then-unsigned New Wave groups also brought us Soft Cell and Depeche Mode.

Signed to London Records, Blancmange released their first two singles, God’s Kitchen and Feel Me, in 1982, followed by debut album Happy Families, spawning their first Top 10 hit with Living On The Ceiling, throwing Middle Eastern flavours into the electro mix.

Trivia fact: Blancmange’s cover of The Day Before You Came was actually even more successful than ABBA’s original, peaking at number 22 – ten places higher than the Swedes.

By the time of their second album, Mange Tout, they Luscombe and Arthur had expanded their sound to experiment with “real” instruments, incorporating sitars, strings, woodwinds, and horns into their synthesized sound.

But Blancmange’s third album, Believe You Me, was a flop and they broke up soon after, with Arthur going solo and Luscombe forming The West Indian Company.

Following their 2011 reunion, and a new album Blanc Burn, Luscombe left after suffering an abdominal aneurism, leading to lifelong health problems. He died in September 2025.