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Today's artists are pioneers of the New Romantic movement, the synth pop group emerged in 1978 from the London club Blitz, a neo-glam nightspot which stood in stark contrast to the prevailing punk mentality of the time. Spearheading Blitz's ultra-chic clientele were Steve Strange, a former member of the punk band the Moors Murderers, and DJ Rusty Egan, onetime drummer with the Rich Kids; seeking to record music of their own to fit in with the club's regular playlist (a steady diet of David Bowie, Kraftwerk, and Roxy Music), .  ......N-Joy

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Founding members Steve Strange and Rusty Egan were hosting David Bowie and Roxy Music club nights at Billy's nightclub in London's Soho district at the time and were eager to find new music to play, ultimately opting to create music themselves. Strange had briefly been in the punk/new wave bands The Moors Murderers and The Photons, and Egan was working with Midge Ure in the band The Rich Kids. The trio recorded a demo which included a cover of the Zager and Evans hit "In the Year 2525". The Visage line-up was completed with the addition of Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie and three-fifths of the post-punk band Magazine – guitarist John McGeoch, keyboardist Dave Formula and bassist Barry Adamson (who left the band after playing on its debut single, but who would return as a session musician). Producer Martin Rushent had heard some of the band's material at Billy's nightclub and financed further recordings with a view to signing the band to his new Genetic Records label. Visage recorded their first album at Rushent's home studio in Berkshire, but Rushent's label collapsed before it had gotten off the ground[citation needed] and the band instead signed to Radar Records, a new independent label run by Rushent's former colleague Martin Davis (the pair had worked together at United Artists Records). Visage released their first single "Tar" on Radar in September 1979, though the single failed to chart. By this time, however, Strange and Egan had relocated their themed club nights to the Blitz club in Covent Garden and the New Romantic movement had begun in earnest. In mid-1980, David Bowie himself visited the club and asked Strange and three other regulars to appear in the video for his single "Ashes to Ashes", which helped to propel the New Romantic movement into the mainstream.

Although Visage's self-titled debut album had been completed for several months, it was not released until November 1980 when the band was now signed to the major label Polydor Records. The band's second single, "Fade to Grey", was released at the same time. The single became a huge hit in early 1981, making the top ten in the UK and several other countries, and reaching no. 1 in Germany and Switzerland. The album also became a Top 20 hit in the UK and was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. After further hits with the singles "Mind of a Toy" and the title track "Visage", Strange struggled to reunite the band's members again to record a second album because of their commitments with their respective bands (Ure had now joined Currie in Ultravox, Formula and Adamson with Magazine and McGeoch with Siouxsie and the Banshees). In the autumn of 1981 Visage went into the studio again and recorded The Anvil as a five-piece band without McGeoch and only limited guest work from Adamson. The album, which was named after an infamous gay nightclub in New York City, was released in March 1982 and became the band's only UK top-ten album, producing two top-twenty singles with "The Damned Don't Cry" and "Night Train". Like their first album, The Anvil earned a Silver disc in the UK. Following this, Ure left the band to concentrate on his work with Ultravox, who were now even more successful than Visage. Creative differences with Strange and Egan were also cited as reasons for his departure at the time.

    "The trouble with Visage was that there were too many chiefs, six characters all wanting an equal say without putting in an equal amount of work. I was doing most of the writing and producing, and we all knew Steve [Strange] was the frontman, but when it became successful, jealousy and the nasty side of the business crept in. That was never the way it was intended.
    Midge Ure, 1983

Visage, now without Ure, McGeoch and Adamson (who continued collaborating with Pete Shelley, and joined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) but now with the addition of bassist Steve Barnacle, recorded the stand-alone single "Pleasure Boys", which was released in October 1982. The single failed to prolong their string of hits and peaked just outside the UK top 40.
Although still recording, Visage then took a two-year hiatus from releasing any new material due to contractual difficulties with their management company. Polydor issued a "best of" compilation, Fade to Grey – The Singles Collection, which included all of the singles released to date and the previously unreleased "In the Year 2525". Although the album was certified Gold in the UK for pre-release sales to stores, it only peaked at No. 38 after its release in November 1983.

In 1984, with their contractual problems resolved, Visage returned with their third album, Beat Boy. Released in October 1984, the album was a critical and commercial failure, peaking at No.  79 in the UK. Two singles from the album, "Love Glove" and "Beat Boy", also failed to make the UK top 40. By this time, Billy Currie and Dave Formula had also left the band (though they received a "special thanks" credit on the album sleeve for their input), leaving only Strange and Egan from the original line-up along with Steve Barnacle and new recruits Gary Barnacle (Steve Barnacle's brother) and Andy Barnett who also was a member of FM and ASAP. A decision to make Visage a live band instead of a strictly studio-based project also failed to meet with success and the band split in 1985. Their final release was a Visage video compilation of the band's renowned promotional videos and other footage, including Strange's trip to North Africa the year before. The compilation does not, however, include the original video for the "Love Glove" single which was filmed at a late-night Dockland location in London in 1984.

Following the demise of Visage, Strange then formed the short-lived band Strange Cruise, though this too proved unsuccessful. Visage returned to the charts once more when a Bassheads remix of "Fade to Grey" was a UK Top 40 hit in 1993.

Second incarnation (2004–2010)

Steve Strange reappeared on the music scene in 2002, after several years of battling a heroin addiction and other personal problems. He performed several Visage songs on the Here and Now Xmas Tour – a revival of 1980s pop acts. Some time after the performance, Strange decided to create a "Mark II" of Visage with people from several electronic bands and projects: Steven Young, Sandrine Gouriou and Rosie Harris from Seize and Ross Tregenza from Jetstream Lovers/Goteki. After the announcement of the formation of the new line-up and several television appearances, plans for reworking old material and releasing a new record made slow progress. An updated version of "Fade to Grey" was produced in 2005. In 2006, Strange also collaborated with the electronic duo Punx Soundcheck and provided vocals on the track "In the Dark", which was included on the duo's debut double album When Machines Ruled the World. The first Visage mk II track was released in 2007, entitled "Diary of a Madman". Written by Strange with Visage mk II member Ross Tregenza, the track was co-produced by original Visage member Dave Formula. This song was made available for download from their official website in return for a donation to the charity Children in Need. However, no further new material surfaced from this line-up.

In 2008, Strange (and Visage II keyboardist Sandrine Gouriou) made an appearance in the BBC drama series Ashes to Ashes which is set in 1981. In it, they performed the song "Fade to Grey" in a scene set in the "Blitz" nightclub. In 2009, Strange and Egan appeared in Living TV's Pop Goes the Band, a series in which pop stars from the 1980s are given a complete makeover in return for a one-off performance. The Visage episode aired on 16 March 2009, and was the first time that the two men had spoken in over 20 years. The episode focused (like others in the series) more on getting them fit in the gym than on the current state of their relationship, though they appeared to get on well enough. At the culmination of the episode, they performed "Fade to Grey".

Final incarnation (2012–2015)

On 8 January 2013, Strange appeared as a guest on the Channel 4 News programme to discuss the forthcoming David Bowie album The Next Day. During the interview he mentioned that a new Visage album was also due for release in Spring 2013. Also on 8 January 2013, Visage launched their new website, Twitter, Facebook and Soundcloud accounts and announced their new line-up to consist of Steve Strange and Steve Barnacle along with Robin Simon (former guitarist in Ultravox from 1978–79 and Magazine in 1980) and Lauren Duvall on vocals.  The band's new album, Hearts and Knives, was released on 20 May 2013. A second single from the album, "Dreamer I Know", was released in July 2013, and a third single, "Never Enough", was released in December. Throughout the second half of 2013, the band also embarked on a series of live dates in the UK and Europe. "Hidden Sign" was the fourth single to be taken from Hearts and Knives, released in May 2014 and "She's Electric (Coming Around)" was released as the fifth and final single in August 2014.

In December 2014, Visage released Orchestral, a mostly live album containing twelve Visage songs remade with a symphony orchestra. A single of the orchestral version of "Fade To Grey" was released ahead of the album in November 2014. On 12 February 2015, frontman Steve Strange died of a heart attack while on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt. While Strange's death ultimately meant the end of Visage, the band opted to complete the album they had already been working with Strange on prior to his death. On 2 September 2015, an organisation known as The Steve Strange Collective was announced. Run by Strange's friends and relatives, they oversaw the release of the final Visage album, Demons to Diamonds, which was released on 6 November 2015, with the companion release, Darkness to Diamond, following a few months later in early 2016.

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With apologies to Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, and even Duran Duran, this is the music that best represents the short-lived but always underrated new romantic movement. That's fitting, because Visage's frontman, Steve Strange, was the colorfully painted face of the movement, just as this album was its sound. Warming up Kraftwerk's icy Teutonic electronics with a Bowie-esque flair for fashion, Strange and the new romantics created a clubland oasis far removed from the drabness of England's early-'80s reality -- and the brutality of the punk response to it. And no one conjured up that Eurodisco fantasyland better than Visage, whose "Fade to Grey" became the anthem of the outlandishly decked-out Blitz Kids congregated at Strange's club nights. With its evocative French female vocals, distant sirens and pulsing layers of synthesizers, "Fade to Grey" is genuinely haunting, the definite high point for Visage and their followers. But the band's self-titled debut is a consistently fine creation, alternating between tunes that share the eerie ambience of "Fade to Grey" ("Mind of a Toy," "Blocks on Blocks") and others that show off a more muscular brand of dance-rock (the title track, filled with thundering electronic tom-tom fills, and the sax-packed instrumental "The Dancer"). Strange and drummer/nightclub partner Rusty Egan had wisely surrounded themselves with top-level talent, primarily drawn from the bands Ultravox and Magazine, and the excellent playing of contributors like guitarists Midge Ure and John McGeoch, bassist Barry Adamson, synthesist Dave Formula, and, especially, electric violinist Billy Currie, all of whom give the album a depth unmatched by most contemporaneous techno-pop. And despite the group's frequently dramatic pose, Strange and his bandmates were hardly humorless; the first single, "Tar," is a witty anti-smoking advertisement, while the Eastwood homage "Malpaso Man" adds some incongruous cowboy twang to the dance beats. Only the closing track, the instrumental "The Steps," is inconsequential -- the rest of Visage proves the new romantics left a legacy that transcends their costumes and makeup. [Note to collectors: The 1997 One Way reissue of the album adds a bonus track, the longer (and far superior) dance mix of "Fade to Grey." Opening with the tune's arresting synth-bass riff, and featuring a extended fade marked by exploding backbeats, it heightens the song's moody atmosphere, and is the way this club classic was meant to be heard.]

Visage - Visage ( flac  305mb)

01 Visage 3:52
02 Blocks On Blocks 3:41
03 The Dancer 3:57
04 Tar 3:31
05 Fade To Grey 3:59
06 Malpaso Man 4:04
07 Mind Of A Toy 4:36
08 Moon Over Moscow 3:44
09 Visa-age 4:32
10 The Steps 3:14
Bonus
11 Fade To Grey (Extended Mix) 6:43

Visage - Visage (ogg  122mb)

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When they recorded the follow-up to their surprisingly successful debut, the members of Visage appeared to be dealing from a position of strength. But the dance club-fueled, style-obsessed new romantic movement that had propelled the group to success in England was already crumbling, and frontman Steve Strange had begun to take his role as the movement's figurehead a little too seriously. The Anvil, rumored to be the subject of a multi-million dollar feature film (a project that never materialized), emphasizes Strange's penchant for melancholy and melodrama. Where the band's debut undercut such pretensions with humorous tracks like the twangy "Malpaso Man," only one tune here -- "Night Train," with a rubbery bassline and blasts of brass backing a tongue-in-cheek tale of intrigue -- dares to take liberties with Visage's moody image. Still, with backing from the same core of post-punk all-stars (Ultravox's Midge Ure -- who co-produced the album -- and violinist Billy Currie, as well as Magazine keyboardist Dave Formula), Strange and drummer Rusty Egan sound just as good as before, and despite once again closing an album with a forgettable instrumental ("Whispers"), almost all the band's efforts on The Anvil are extremely well-crafted synth pop. Two, in fact, are essential new wave artifacts. The title track takes a despairing look around clubland, setting Strange's best-ever lyric to a grim parody of a hit in the meatmarket disco it describes; it suggests he'd become disillusioned with the scene that had spawned Visage. "The Damned Don't Cry," meanwhile, is even better, a ghostly groove that comes closer than anyone would have thought possible to recapturing the haunted magnificence of "Fade to Grey," the band's signature hit. [Note to collectors: The 1997 One Way reissue appends two bonus tracks to the running order. Welcome is the rocked-up remix of "We Move," one of Visage's best singles. The dance mix of "Frequency 7," a bleeping and buzzing electro-instrumental, is fun but nonessential.]

Visage - The Anvil ( flac  305mb)

01 The Damned Don't Cry 4:43
02 Anvil (Night Club School) 4:39
03 Move Up 4:25
04 Night Train 4:29
05 The Horseman 4:41
06 Look What They've Done 4:49
07 Again We Love 4:44
08 Wild Life 4:24
09 Whispers 5:39
Bonus
10 We Move (Dance Mix) 6:28
11 Frequency 7 (Dance Mix) 5:02

Visage - The Anvil  (ogg  123mb)

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The third and final album from new romantic icons Visage found foppish frontman Steve Strange and drummer Rusty Egan almost completely without most of the high-profile sidemen -- like Midge Ure, keyboardist Billy Currie and bassist Barry Adamson -- who'd played such a big role in crafting the group's lush, haunting synth pop. Undeterred, Strange and Egan recruited a new lineup that gave a prominent role to saxophonist Gary Barnacle. But the real shock to fans was the shrieking, metallic guitar that appeared on most cuts, an intrusion that seemed completely at odds with the suave, continental image suggested by past hits like "Fade to Grey" and "The Damned Don't Cry." In fact, the guitar muscle worked surprisingly well when simply overlaid atop the group's familiar dance pulse, as on the title track and "The Promise." But straight-up rockers like the endless "Only the Good (Die Young)" and "Casualty" featured a lethal combination of ham-handed riffs and dumb lyrics, thoroughly alienating the blitz kids who'd once packed the London discos Strange and Egan ran. Those fans made a club hit of the melodic "Love Glove," the closest thing here to Visage's classic sound, but ignored the rest, making Beat Boy a disappointing swan song for the group. Yet despite the uneven songwriting, hindsight showed that Strange's ear for the next big trend hadn't deserted him. The next year, the success of Duran Duran offshoot the Power Station had synth poppers on both sides of the Atlantic scurrying to rough up their dance tracks with heavy guitar. Perhaps in this case, the colorfully costumed Strange -- who later displayed his sartorial sense in a new band, Strange Cruise, before largely bowing out of the music biz -- was just too far in front of the fashion curve.

Visage - Beat Boy ( 338mb)

01 Beat Boy 6:49
02 Casualty 5:33
03 Questions 6:14
04 Only The Good Die Young 6:02
05 Can You Hear Me 6:32
06 The Promise 4:03
07 Love Glove 4:47
08 Yesterday's Shadow 6:37
Bonus
09 Beat Boy (Dance Dub) 5:22

Visage - Beat Boy (ogg  129mb)

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Peter Godwin seemingly appeared out of nowhere when he released the single "Images of Heaven" in 1982. However, by that time he had already been recording music for more than half a decade. He began as a member of a group called Metro, who recorded its self-titled debut in 1976. Metro briefly changed their name to Public Zone and released a single with the Police's Stewart Copeland on drums. After Metro recorded New Love in 1979 and Future Imperfect a year later, they broke up. Godwin went solo, releasing the mini-album Images of Heaven in 1982. The synth pop title track became a cult favorite on new wave radio stations, and a provocative version of its video received controversy because it presented naked women in crucifix poses. David Bowie covered Metro's "Criminal World" on his Let's Dance album in 1983, renewing interest in Godwin's old group. But 1983's Correspondence would be the last time fans would hear from Godwin until 1998's Images of Heaven: The Best of Peter Godwin, a retrospective of his career that featured three new songs. During his absence Godwin wrote for other musicians and even acted in films.

Oglio's Images of Heaven: Best of Peter Godwin features the original 1982 album Images of Heaven, with slight differences, plus three remixes and three new songs that have not been released in America before this disc. The three new songs begin the disc, which is a little disconcerting, but they're strong songs, especially "Rendezvous," and Godwin's attempt a Serge Gainsbourg-Jane Birkin duet. The album itself, Images of Heaven, is a fairly solid collection of '80s synth-pop, driven by texture as much as melody. Every instrument on the album is synthesized, which means it sounds a little dated, especially since the beats are regimented and mechanical. Nevertheless, Godwin has the nervous voice (slightly similar to David Byrne or Bryan Ferry) right for this material, and he can write a solid hook, especially on "Baby's in the Mountains," "The Dancer" and the title track. However, he's at his best on moody numbers like "Torch Songs for the Heroine" or his version of his old band Metro's "Criminal World," where the dance beat is subdued and the melodies are in minor keys, creating an eerie appeal. Those moments don't arrive often enough on Images of Heaven, and a few of the tracks are too stiff or slight to really register, but the record remains an interesting synth-pop artifact. Oglio's edition substitutes the single version of "Torch Songs for the Heroine," the 12-inch EP version of "Emotional Disguise," and the full-length version of "Images of Heaven" for the original album versions.

Peter Godwin - Images of Heaven (the best of) ( 466mb)

01 Rendezvous 4:51
02 Another World 4:30
03 Naked Smile 2:59
04 Baby's In The Mountains 4:13
05 The Art Of Love 4:53
06 Young Pleasure 4:24
07 The Dancer 3:41
08 Torch Songs For The Heroine (Single Version) 4:04
09 Emotional Disguise (12" EP Version) 4:15
10 Images Of Heaven (Full-Length Version) 5:01
11 Cruel Heart 3:13
12 Gemini (Metro) 5:01
13 Criminal World (Metro) 5:26
Bonus Remix
14 Images Of Heaven (Razormaid Version) 6:08
15 Baby's In The Mountains (John Luongo Mix) 6:46
16 Rendezvous (French Remix) 4:59

Peter Godwin - Images of Heaven (the best of) (ogg 173mb)

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