Photos: Soft Cell to Release Final Album DANCETERIA and Tour U.S. This Fall

Electronic music duo SOFT CELL, singer and frontman Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball, have released a final new song, 'Wave To America,' to celebrate the release of their final album. Danceteria is out now via Republic of Music.

'Wave To America' is a glorious high kicking pop production and a properly fitting farewell to Soft Cell's brilliant and boundary-breaking career.

Danceteria is a big, classy and playful farewell to 47 years of Marc and Dave making music as Soft Cell and features legacy-defining performances from the electronic pop duo. The record has picked up press acclaim, including features in the New York Times, SPIN, FLOOD, OUT and more. Across the Atlantic, the band has received coverage with an eight-page feature and Album of the Month in Classic Pop, Uncut's featured album and Q&A, a 16 page cover feature for September's Electronic Sound with a covermount exclusive 7' single, a 5 page broadsheet exclusive interview for The Sunday Times Magazine, and a feature for The Quietus.

Danceteria takes listeners through 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 listen to and order now on vinyl and CD, with the CD expanding to 14 tracks including two bonus tracks: 'Crackland' and 'What Is Your Morality.'

'Wave To America' follows the ballad 'The Rainbow Room,' which showcases the heavier, moodier side of Danceteria, and 'The Space Inside,' complete with vocals from Marc Almond and synths from Dave Ball.

'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.'

Danceteria is also a tribute to the late Dave Ball, who passed away on October 22, 2025, and it is one of the last bodies of work Ball co-wrote and produced before his death. Almond led the obituaries, describing Dave as a 'brilliant musical genius.' The world's media followed, hailing him as an electronic music pioneer, with 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 the album release went ahead as planned in full tribute to him.

'There can be no more recordings of Soft Cell without Dave,' explained Almond. '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.'

Marc Almond has announced another live run, this time in South America in late November to December. Prior to that, Marc will be playing more European shows in Italy and Poland from late September to October. In early November, Marc returns to the States for a second time this year and will be touring as Soft Cell. The run kicks off on November 8th in San Diego and takes in Darker Waves festival in California on November 14th. Full listings and ticket links are available at marcalmond.co.uk.

'The Danceteria album reflects what we were going through as Brits in New York,' concludes Marc. 'We arrived there in 1981 with a bunch of songs that were initially written about London and Leeds. They were songs that reflected the greyness and repression of Margaret Thatcher's Britain. But once we hit New York, the same songs became infused with a fresh, streetwise sensibility. We were in the clubs, where ecstasy was available for the first time, and we felt privileged to be part of that secret. Our music took on a hybrid quality. We were quintessentially British, but we felt that we were also an honorary American band. So it feels right that the last Soft Cell album is invested in those myths and stories. It brings everything full circle for us, and it's a fitting tribute to Dave.'

With the untimely death of Dave Ball in 2025, the band's sixth and final album, Danceteria, is now available via Republic of Music.

Tour Dates

Nov 8 San Diego, CA The Magnolia

Nov 10 Napa, CA Uptown Theatre

Nov 11 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom

Nov 13 Reno, NV Grand Sierra Resort/Casino

Nov 14 Huntington Beach, CA Darker Waves

Nov 15 San Luis Obispo, CA Fremont Theater

Tracklist

1) Elusive

2) Danceteria

3) The Space Inside

4) Times Square

5) Two Of A Kind

6) The Rainbow Room

7) In Heaven (When I Dance With You)

8) Decadence Is Hard Work

9) Crackland

10) What Is Your Morality

11) Losing Yourself

12) After Hours

13) Wave To America

14) Out Come The Freaks

Photo Credit: Andrew Whitton (hi-res)