Marc Almond and Dave Ball are premiering the new track “Northern Lights” ahead of their final gig as Soft Cell, which is also the band’s sold out 40th anniversary concert—that is naturally being billed as “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”—held on September 30th at London’s O2 Arena.
Both new songs “Northern Lights,” along with “Guilty (‘Cos I Say You Are).” close out the collection of 20 tracks in the collection, Keychains and Snowstorms: The Singles, which is set for release on September 28th.
This new material, however, will not be included on the previously announced nine-disc box set Keychains and Snowstorms: The Soft Cell Story, which is being released around that time.
According to Universal Music, the new music was developed while both Almond and Ball were already preparing the box set. During this time Ball shared with Almond two new pieces of music he had composed, which in turn — inspired Almond to begin writing on lyrics, leading to the completion of the duo’s two swan songs to close out the legendary synth project’s 40 years of music history.
Universal went on to say however, that “due to the long lead manufacturing times for box sets,” both new Soft Cell tracks were not able to be included on the 9-disc set, and will only be featured on the best of.
Soft Cell, a synthpop duo formed in 1977 are best known for their 1981 debut LP Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Marc Almond and Ball would release two more LP’s under their original run, 1983’s The Art of Falling Apart, and 1984’s This Last Night in Sodom, before calling it quits until a reunion 2001 which eventually led to the release of 2002’s Cruelty Without Beauty.
Almond and Ball would then call it quits again in 2003, before their reunion this year.
Order the singles collection here
Tracklist: Soft Cell, Keychains and Snowstorms: The Singles
- “Memorabilia”
- “Tainted Love”
- “Where Did Our Love Go?”
- “Bedsitter”
- “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”
- “Sex Dwarf”
- “Torch”
- “Insecure Me”
- “What”
- “Where The Heart Is”
- “Numbers”
- “Barriers”
- “Loving You, Hating Me”
- “Soul Inside”
- “Down In The Subway”
- “Divided Soul”
- “Monoculture”
- “The Night”
- “Northern Lights”
- —“Guilty (‘Cos I Say You Are)”
