Information/Write-up
Dancespeak (also styled as Dance Speak) was a Vancouver, British Columbia–based electronic project that emerged from the same fertile mid-1980s scene that produced Images in Vogue, Skinny Puppy, and a network of synth-pop, EBM, and industrial hybrids that helped define Canada’s electronic music landscape.
The core of Dancespeak was built around Glen Nelson and Ed Shaw, both central figures in Images in Vogue, who used the project as a vehicle to explore darker, club-oriented textures beyond the band’s more melodic synth-pop framework. Their work in Dancespeak leaned toward EBM and industrial rhythms, emphasizing programmed percussion, sequenced synthesizers, and a more confrontational atmosphere suited to late-1980s alternative dance floors.
A defining element of Dancespeak was the involvement of Kim Clarke Champniss (credited on early releases as K.C.C.), whose spoken-word and vocal contributions gave the project a distinct narrative and conceptual identity. Champniss was closely connected to Images in Vogue during their formative years and later became nationally known as a MuchMusic VJ, creating an unusual point of overlap between Canada’s underground electronic scene and its mainstream music media.
The project’s earliest releases, including the Amber Records single ‘Heart of My Song’ b/w ‘Naked in the Deep (Insomnia)’ and the 1989 Intrepid Records 12-inch The Necessary Illusion, place Dancespeak within Vancouver’s industrial-adjacent orbit. Production on key tracks by Dave “Rave” Ogilvie—closely associated with the city’s industrial sound—reinforced those connections, while backing vocals from the Atalanta Sisters and distribution through BMG Music Canada reflected a project operating between independent experimentation and wider commercial infrastructure.
By the mid-1990s, the Dancespeak identity evolved further with the release of A Sound Mind on Iron Music. The album expanded the project into a more fully realized electronic statement, with Joe Vizvary handling music, programming, and performance, Champniss focusing on spoken-word and lyrical content, and contributions from figures such as Dave Rout on TB-303. Its layered production credits—spanning Ken Marshall, Dave Ogilvie, and Darrell Flint—reflect the collaborative, studio-driven character of Vancouver’s electronic scene during the period.
Taken together, the recordings issued under the Dancespeak name document a strand of Vancouver electronic activity that moved between synth-pop structures, EBM, and spoken-word electronics, shaped by musicians and producers active across multiple related projects during the same era.
-Robert Williston
Musicians
Kim Clarke Champniss: voice
Glen Nelson: keyboards
Ed Shaw: guitar
Lori Paul: backing vocals
Songwriting
Written by Glen Nelson, Ed Shaw, and Christopher Clarke Champniss
Production
Produced by Dancespeak
Engineered by Dave Ogilvie
Nelson & Shaw appear courtesy of Quality Records
Notes
Amber Records
1774 – 810 W. Broadway
Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 4C9
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