The final album from Marc Almond and Dave Ball, will be released on the 25th September 2026 via Republic of Music
Electronic music legends Soft Cell, aka singer and frontman Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball, are set to release ‘Danceteria’, their sixth and final studio album, on the 25th September 2026 via Republic of Music.
Listen to first single proper, ‘Danceteria’, through the dazzling discotastic video made by collage artist Vicki Bennett. Out today, the title track is a joyous, celebratory burst of disco pop and as the album opener, it is a statement of intent. It is Soft Cell at their very best, with Almond’s iconic vocals soaring over Dave’s masterful John Barry-esque minor chord progressions. There couldn’t be a more fitting disco banger to pull back the dusty velvet curtain and beckon you into the heady, romantic and deliciously dark world of ‘Danceteria’.
‘Danceteria’ the album is a big, classy and playful farewell to 47 years of Marc and Dave making music as Soft Cell and features career-defining performances from our electronic pop legends. Reminiscent of Sparks, Pet Shop Boys and with lyrics Lady Gaga would kill for, the album takes you on a vivid journey through a day in early 80s New York, bouncing round the clock from night to bleary daybreak and headlong back into the club. The 12-track album is available to pre-order now on vinyl and CD, with the CD expanding to 14 tracks including two bonus tracks in form of ‘Crackland’ and ‘What Is Your Morality’.
Marc provides an initial snapshot into the album:
“Danceteria is a love letter to New York in the early 80s. The time we spent in New York – where we recorded our first 3 albums – shaped us both as artists and people. To celebrate this period is a fitting farewell to Dave Ball and the final Soft Cell studio album.”
‘Danceteria’ is equally a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball. The final album is one of the last bodies of work Ball co-wrote and produced before his sad, untimely passing on the 22nd of October 2025. Almond led the obituaries, describing Dave as a “brilliant musical genius”. The world’s media followed, hailing him as an electronic music pioneer, plus music stars including Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys, Mute Records’ Daniel Miller, Cabaret Voltaire and Richard Norris from Dave’s techno duo The Grid contributing an outpouring of elegiac praise. Dave finished ‘Danceteria’ two days before he passed away and it is in full tribute to him that the album release went ahead as planned.
It is also because of Dave’s passing that ‘Danceteria’ simply has to be the last Soft Cell album, as Marc explains:
“There can be no more recordings of Soft Cell without Dave, it would not be possible. The sad reality is that Dave Ball was half of Soft Cell, and live work aside, I can’t write Soft Cell songs without him.”
‘Danceteria’ is set in the legendary Manhattan nightclub where young Marc and Dave would party until the small hours after the recording sessions for their seminal 1981 debut ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret‘. This was a life changing moment for the two art school students from Leeds Polytechnic. Marc and Dave stepped into a world of unbridled creativity and total self-expression in New York, swiftly fitting in and making friends with the most up for it in-crowd at Danceteria. Mirroring its eclectic musical style, Danceteria provided a home for party people from all walks of life, sexualities and recreational appetites, drawn together by the desire to simply be themselves. More than most, the queer community thrived under the discoball lights, falling in and out of love and dancing until dawn – essential solidarity against well-worn societal prejudices and the existential threat from the burgeoning AIDS epidemic. Within these sweaty club walls, Marc saw Madonna’s first ever performance on the Danceteria floor, following a hot tip by a certain Seymour Stein – a moment the queen of pop is also playing tribute to on her own new album ‘Confessions On A Dance Floor: Part 2‘. During that time, Marc and Dave also met Andy Warhol a few times, the subject of ‘Polaroid‘ on Soft Cell’s fifth studio album, 2022’s ‘*Happiness not included‘. The duo recorded their second album 1982’s ‘The Art of Falling Apart’ and the majority of third album 1984’s ‘This Last Night In Sodom‘ in the Big Apple, working with engineer and producer Mike Thorne at Mediasound for the first two and Dave Ball producing the third. Additionally, Marc Almond lived in New York periodically over 25 years from the early 80s.
“Soft Cell have always had a strong connection with New York, and my Soft Cell lyrics often look at America through British eyes,” says Marc. “New York in the 1980s was a particularly creative place for me. It was a pivotal era in terms of changes in my personal life and changes in the city itself. New York shaped Soft Cell, as it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It was dirty, dark and dangerous – a real Wild West – but it was also deeply inspiring and exciting. A lot of our original influences came from America anyway: New York punk, Devo, Suicide, Lou Reed, disco and 1960s soul. But New York was like nowhere else on earth. There were 24-hour nightclubs, music, art and underground theatre. It offered a cornucopia of energy and edge, and the lyrics on ‘Danceteria’ reflect that time of my life.”
Earlier in March this year, the first new music released from ‘Danceteria‘ in form of ‘Out Come The Freaks‘, a cover of Was (Not Was)’ 1981 mutant disco classic, and the album closer no less. The track conjures the hedonist spirit of early 80s Manhattan, captured in this Danceteria floor filler spun by DJ Mark Kamins. The final flourish of glitter to Soft Cell’s ‘Out Come The Freaks‘ comes courtesy of guest vocals from Nona Hendryx, the iconic singer and one third of Labelle of ‘Lady Marmalade‘ fame. Today’s single, ‘Danceteria‘, was initially released as an extended mix on limited white 12-inch vinyl for Record Store Day 2026, along with a classic house rework by Mark Moore and Dan Donovan, plus a dub version.
‘Danceteria‘ is a love letter to the cultural vibrancy of New York in the 1980s, it’s a fitting tribute to Soft Cell’s creative inception in NYC, Dave’s pioneering electronic genius and an outrageously great, 47-year musical career as one of Britain’s trailblazing sonic forces.
Pre-order ‘Danceteria’ on vinyl, CD and digital here.
