On the Velvet Trail with Marc Almond

The 80s legend Marc Almond had a heady start to his career in Soho, a centre of London’s musical heritage and the soul of the city’s counter culture where anything went.

Now he fears its beating heart is being ripped out, replaced with boutique hotels and generic coffee shops. As part of the pop duo Soft Cell, he lived and recorded in the area. Now in his fifties, he still buys his synthesizers on Denmark Street, reminiscing as he plays one about the beauty of the shops bursting with instruments and visited by hundreds of virtuosos.

Out of retirement

Despite announcing he was retiring five years ago, the singer is back with a new album, The Velvet Trail.

It’s a collaboration with producer Chris Braide, but the pair never spoke on the phone – apparently it would ruin the magic. Almond is full of little surprises and some gutsy steel, mixed with a good dose of self-deprecation.

He nearly died after a motorbike accident in 2004 and had to learn to sing again. He’s a bit bored by the current crop of stars, saying it feels like a “conservative music period”.

I feel music is going through a very conservative phase. Marc Almond

While some of his contemporaries have indulged in their former glory, he’s shaped-shifted from glam-pop to Russian folk and even opera.

I ask him: are you more about the pipe and slippers than smudged eyeliner these days? He laughs heartily, insisting his voice is at its best and he’ll make it on stage till the very end, on a Zimmer frame if needed.