Soft Cell are reissuing their remix album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing. First released in 1982, the new double-CD version features the original album remastered and the original extended versions of “Torch” and “What!” (a cover of Judy Street’s 1968 Northern Soul single). The second disc includes new remixes by Erasure, The Hacker, Jon Pleased Wimmin, Daniel Miller, The Grid, and Hifi Sean, as well as highlights from 2007’s previously deleted Heat – The Remixes.
Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing, known for being more dance-focused than the duo’s synth-pop debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, has inspired generations of club-goers, DJs, and remixers.
Soft Cell formed in Leeds, England in 1978 with frontman and LGBTQ icon Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball. The duo made waves in the club scene before their pop breakthrough in 1981 with their performance of “Tainted Love.”
“Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing, recorded at Mediasound in a very cold and snowy New York in February 1982, was a bit like a party in the studio. It was created to encapsulate the atmosphere and influences of all the clubs we went to, the music we danced to, and the drugs we took during our nights out in New York — the most obvious being cocaine and our most recent discovery at the time, ecstasy,” Ball says of the dance remix album. “We stripped or dubbed out most of the vocals and added more horns, and extensively used the analogue Serge modular system (that also played the pulsating sound heard on ‘Torch’, recorded around the same time). It generated fantastically dirty, random chaos and synthetic scratch sounds, which just added to the intensity of the album. It ultimately captured the zeitgeist – and I think still sounds valid today.”
Since their reunion in 2018, Soft Cell have remained as relevant as ever. They celebrated the 40th anniversary of Non Stop Erotic Cabaret with a boxset and tour in 2021. The following year, they released their fifth studio album Happiness Not Included, featuring the “Purple Zone” collaboration with fellow synth-pop pioneers Pet Shop Boys. Most recently, Soft Cell toured Australia for the first time ever and will head over to the United States to tour in May and June with Simple Minds.
Order Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing now.
