After expanding their debut album for a box set in 2023, Soft Cell will revisit the next entry in their discography: the remix album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.
Available June 20, the collection comes back to two CDs or two LPs with a host of bonus material, including vintage non-LP singles and remixes plus a host of rare promo remixes issued in the last decade. (While UMC's solicitation notes three of the 12 tracks on the set's bonus disc are unreleased, our research puts it at one, with the rest sourced from promo releases, the 2008 remix collection Heat and the career-spanning 2018 box Keychains and Snowstorms: The Soft Cell Story.) The vinyl, pressed on blue and pink wax, will offer six of the 20 total bonus tracks; both will include liner notes by former NME writer Adrian Thrills.
After Marc Almond and David Bell burst onto the scene with 1981's Non-Stop Erotic Dancing - which featured a synth-forward cover of Gloria Jones' Northern soul classic "Tainted Love" that became a worldwide No. 1 and opened the floodgates for synthpop and New Wave on the American charts - Soft Cell had intentions of recording new material for their sophomore album with a most unlikely ally: Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. Unfortunately, label disputes left the material the trio penned and demoed stuck in limbo; with just a week of session time left, the duo hastily conceived Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing, a hodgepodge of remixes and new material that nonetheless managed to hang together as an album. (As the title implied, the work was inspired by more than a few nights at clubs under the influence of the drug MDMA.) Featuring versions of two songs from Erotic Cabaret ("Sex Dwarf," "Chips on My Shoulder"), both sides of the group's debut single ("A Man Could Get Lost" and "Memorabilia"), and a B-side (a cover of The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" that was the flip - and on a 12" mix, the second half - of "Tainted Love"), the album features one new recording of another Northern soul favorite: the H.B. Barnum-penned "What," as notably performed by Judy Street.
Though some critics scoffed at the package, Non-Stop Erotic Dancing was a formidable release. It made the U.K. Top 10, while "What" reached No. 3, becoming Soft Cell's fifth straight Top 5 hit. (The fourth, original song "Torch," in included with its B-side "Insecure...Me?" in 7" and 12" form among the bonus material of this set, as is "What" and B-side "...So.") The duo would return more properly as 1983 began with The Art of Falling Apart (which the Erotic Dancing product description indicates will get its own deluxe reissue later this year); they split a year later after 1984's This Last Night in Sodom but reunited in the early '00s and more permanently in 2018; their latest album was 2022's Happiness Not Included, promoted with a spate of worldwide festival appearances.
Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing is moving toward you on June 20. Full specs and pre-order links are below; as an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing (Expanded Edition) (Mercury/UMC (U.K.), 2025)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
CD 1: Original album and bonus tracks/LP 1: Original album (Tracks 1-6 below)
- Memorabilia
- Where Did Our Love Go?
- What!
- A Man Could Get Lost
- Chips on My Shoulder
- Sex Dwarf
- Tainted Dub
- Torch (12" Version) +
- Insecure...Me? (12" Version) +
- What! (12" Version) +
- ...So (12" Version) +
- Torch (7" Version)
- Insecure...Me? (7" Version)
- What! (7" Version)
- ...So (7" Version)
Tracks 1-6 released as Some Bizarre BZX 1012 (U.K.), 1982
Track 7 released on "Tainted Love" U.K. 12" - Some Bizarre BZS 212, 1981
Tracks 8-9 released as Some Bizarre U.K. 12" BZS 912, 1982
Tracks 10-11 released as Some Bizarre U.K. 12" BZS 112, 1982
Tracks 12-13 released as Some Bizarre U.K. single BZS 9, 1982
Tracks 14-15 released as Some Bizarre U.K. single BZS 11, 1982
CD 2: Remixes & Rarities (* previously unreleased) / LP 2: Remixes (+)
- Memorabilia (The Hacker 808 Remix)
- A Man Could Get Lose (Jon Pleased Wimmin Remix) +
- Torch (MHC 2001 Remix) *
- Insecure...Me? (Hifi Sean Remix)
- ...So (Hifi Sean Baltimore Basement Dub)
- Bedsitter (Manhattan Clique Mix)
- Tainted Love (Paul Dakeyne Remix)
- Memorabilia (Wally Funk Remix)
- Sex Dwarf (The Grid Remix)
- Bedsitter (Erasure Remix) +
- ...So (The Grid Remix)
- Memorabilia (Daniel Miller Remix)
Tracks 1, 8 and 12 released on German promo CD single - Vertigo GDRCD001, 2023
Tracks 2 and 4-5 released on Club Remixes 2018 promo EP - A Big Frock Rekord U.K. 12" ABF2, 2018
Tracks 6-7 and 9 released on Heat: The Remixes - Some Bizarre/Mercury 5311758 (U.K.), 2008
Tracks 10-11 released on Keychains and Snowstorms: The Soft Cell Story - Mercury/UMC 6741996 (U.K.), 2018
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