[…continued from last post]

The seeds of the “Orcherstral” album were planted by the date that Visage played in the Czech Republic at the Ski Flying World Championships. The Prague Philharmonic orchestra played live with the band and producer John Bryan; having a penchant for strings, clearly thought that this needed to happen in a studio as well. Resulting in the “Orchestral” album being issued in December to wrap up 2014 with an ornate bow. Also including the new song “The Silence” which only appeared there. Visage wrapped up their live “Hearts + Knives” tour with some dates in Japan as the year wound down.

Then came the startling news that Steve Strange had died of heart failure while visiting Egypt on February 12, of 2015. Which hit with a shock even though Steve had clearly borne the brunt of his lifestyle rather fully. Just looking at photos of him showed that he was certainly diminished by his exploits. At the time there was reportage on the follow up album to “Hearts + Knives” and I had hoped that Steve had been recorded to the point where the band could finish the follow up album.

Then there was the matter of the Steve Strange solo album that the singer had been talking about in the press period surrounding “Hearts + Knives.” With his penchant for hyping, I never knew how to take Strange’s pronouncements; with a grain of salt or not? He seemed to be recording his own project with Steve Barnacle concurrently with the new Visage material and we would have to just wait and see on that one.

By November of 2015, the album had been finished and was released sporting a cover photographed by old rival Boy George. The band had recorded over half of the 15 songs written and these formed the new release. These songs sounded more cohesive than the album that preceded it. I put that down to the band actually functioning as a live unit on their year of touring before finishing the album. With Steve gone, the decision was made to bypass any singles since how could they promote them without the ace face himself?

Since there had been so many modern Visage remixes on the “Hearts + Knives” singles, I was a little sad that we would not be getting the same treatment on “Demons To Diamonds,” but in early 2016 the “Darkness To Diamonds” remix album dropped, with remixes and alternate versions of every song on the album plus a bonus Visage remix of the James Grant “Heartbleed” track.

Meanwhile, I began investigating what members of Team Visage were doing following the end of the band. It was at the time of the final album that I first noticed the duo of Steven Jones + Logan Sky. With Logan being a member of the band who played on the last two Visage albums as well as playing the synths on their live shows. Interest in their output gave me huge paybacks as they became some of my favorite modern music thanks to Logan’s analog synths and Mr. Jones’ moody vocals and intriguing lyrics.

December of 2016 brought forth a clearing of the decks with what felt like every last variant of tracks that were still in the tape cupboard withe the “Wild Life” extended release set. The initial disc was the only Visage compilation that ran the gamut of all five albums across various labels in the band’s history. With some Polydor era tracks being released on CD here for the first time. But also available was a 7xCD set with that disc plus re-recorded versions the last phase band recorded for streaming and download. I presume that the license was for only physical copies of the Polydor tracks on CD with any streaming or downloads being of the newly recorded tracks.

This often happens in music due to licensing rights and at least here, the option was to have everything if you wanted to buy-in for it. And at £49.00 this was a fairly lowball price for such a package. I hope you bought yours early. A mint copy of the seven disc set last sold on Discogs for $318.00 six months ago.

Then in 2017 we got another hit of Steve Strange just when we needed it with a posthumous release of a song he was working with Logan Sky on as the title track of their “Corrupt State” album of that year. A rare instance of Steve applying his aesthetic to the post-Snowdon realities of the 21st century.

From 2018 to 2022, significant parts of the Visage catalog got the love and attention that fans had been waiting on for decades. The tasteful and obsessive Rubellan Remasters label saw fit to grace our personal Record Cells with deluxe remasters of the first two Visage albums; each laden with rare mixes and B-sides. Many of which were never on CD format, much less mastered with the care that label head Scott Davies lavished on them.

We were overjoyed at this happening and then he really pulled out the stops and in 2020 he remastered the “Fade To Grey: The Singles Collection Dance Mix” album to the silver disc! And this just two years after I did the duty myself from my own LP version of this very obscure tributary of the mighty river Visage. I was flabbergasted that anyone would have done this, and he did it again in 2022, when he licensed and remastered the even more obscure “Beat Boy Dance Mix Cassette” version of that album!

And yes, once more he did this a few years after I had digitized one of the fragile cassettes hanging around for nearly 40 years that a Visage superfan had sent to me so I could make a CD-R from it. Three of these Rubellan Visage discs are out of print and will set you back three figures each in the aftermarket, but as of today, there are still copies of the fourth Visage CD [“Beat Boy Dance Mix Cassette Version”] in the Rubellan Store for the tiny sum of $9.99 as he’s shut down operations and is moving them out.

In 2022 a new Visage “Fade To Grey” remix appeared in stores online and once I remembered to buy it I was disappointed to hear that the “Lecomte de Bregéot + Violet Chachki mix]” Actually featured Violet Chachki on the vocals instead of Steve Strange. And then it was radio silence until last Fall and the announcement of the unexpected but long desired Visage “Live” CD from their 2014 tour. Better still, the buyers who bought the CD from the Visage Webstore could get a bonus album of the Prague Sessions with the Synthosmphonica orchestral arrangements. And finally, the capper was a DL single of “Before You Win,” the planned but abandoned single from the “Demons To Diamonds” album of 2015. In 2025, we can truly ask ourselves if there’s anything else out there to filter out and surprise us?

Well, the Visage underground has been waiting for three late projects to reach hungry ears. There are three non-Visage projects that the Steve Strange estate could eventually see to market.

• Unnamed Steve Strange solo project I
• Unnamed Steve Strange project II
• Detroit Starzz album

The first project was the solo album that Steve was concurrently recording with his partner Steve Barnacle. I’ve read interviews with Mr. Barnacle where he muses that one day it would get a release. The second project was the solo album that Strange had started with Logan Sky along with Robin Simon and fashion maven turned recording artist Daphne Guinness. And finally, there’s the Detroit Starrzz project that Steve recorded with Lauren Duvall and Rachel Ellektra who played and produced. There’s allegedly a version of “Halo” with Steve singing on it and I have to admit, as dodgy as the lyrics were to “Phone Sex” were, the vibe really hit hard where I want to hear Steve go. So we might not yet be ready to consign the memory of Steve Strange to the dusty libraries where the New Romantic movement is studied by future generations of club kids just yet.

Steve Strange was a paradox. An artist who by his own admission was not the best of singers. Who relied on being surrounded with top flight musical talent to make the records that continue to beguile us. But an artist who acted as a curatorial lens through which the musical collective around him could focus and amplify their efforts. A music element capable of catalyzing fascinating chain reactions around them. And then he knew how to promote the hell out of the finished product. Using his extroversion and fashion savvy to the nth degree to attract publicity. This alone was a valuable asset for a studio project built upon players already committed to other bands who couldn’t be relied upon to do any promotional heavy lifting.

The personal difficulties he had to endure were prodigious and well documented. That he was able to eventually produce two more Visage albums that were as compelling as they were was pretty astonishing. For the last dozen years I’ve pointed to “Hearts + Knives” as a textbook perfect “comeback” record and this has not yet been surpassed by my reckoning. I actually prefer that album to any earlier part of the group’s legacy. And I really love the first two Visage albums! This band have had me looking at the “miscellaneous V” sections of every record store I’ve ever been in and until I get everything, this is not likely to change. Hats off to Mr. Harrington for all he managed to accomplish in too brief of a life, and respect for all of his musical collaborators.

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