Artist: Title (label, release date) 1-5 stars
The Art of Noise: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! (ZTT, October 25, 2005) ****
Dave Edmunds: Twangin' (Wounded Bird, October 25, 2005) ****
Gun Club: Mother Juno (Sympathy for the Record Industry, October 25, 2005) ****
The Meteors: Sewertime Blues (Anagram, October 25, 2005) ****
The Art of Noise: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise!
A decade before trip-hop, there was The Art of Noise. An offshoot of (ex-Buggles, ex-Yes, ex-Asia) producer Trevor Horn's studio band, The Art of Noise produced ambient downtempo proto-electronica that earned a lot of club play and significant radio play in the early 1980's. Their 1984 debut album, (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art of Noise!, remains their definitive statement. An album chock full of advanced-in-its-day studio trickery, including sampling, tape splicing, programmed beats, and plenty of other weird sounds, it alienated traditional rock fans while becoming a cult item among pop sophisticates. Much of the textures and experiments have since became commonplace in trip-hop and electronica; Prodigy's big club hit "Firestarter" takes a key sample from the most well-known song here, "(Close To) The Edit". The title is a challenge; the Art of Noise were deconstructionists, who shattered conventions in pursuit of the now, one of the most self-consciously modern units of the early 1980's. Many of the textures they created were unsettlingly alien to the typical 1984 listener; herein lies their appeal. "(Close To) The Edit" is a mix of aggressive snippets, loops, and samples atop a fretless bass and cacophony of percussion. The same synthetic orchestral blurt sampled by Yes and Duran Duran in their 1983 hits turns up here; the closest thing to a lyric is Anne Dudley's intoning of a single line midway through. Most of the rest of this album is similar in spirit and style. "Moments in Love" is built around a synthetic panpipe sample, as accompanying synthetic effects and instrumentation build a slow, ambient downtempo groove. "Beat Box (Diversion One)", the trio's biggest hit, is reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in a house of mirrors, with the title machine the center attraction. The other six tracks are more variations on the same essential theme. Art of Noise's essential message was that anything could be a musical instrument, and if it couldn't, it could be manipulated into one electronically. This, of course, is old news now. But what might be a surprise is that (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art of Noise! manages to sound extremely crisp and fresh two decades later, long after such music was considered old hat.
Article comments
1 - godogo
I'm not sure, but I think Kid Congo was actually the original guitarist for the Gun Club, prior to joining the Cramps.
I was a Gun Club fan, and used to go see them in high school in the early 80's, but I also remember that Pierce's onstage infantilism (with all due respect, of course), got so out of hand that we'd go out with the express purpose of taunting him.
2 - uao
Thanks, godogo. I checked it out; Powers was in Gun Club first, went to the Cramps, and returned to Gun Club again; I fixed the text to better reflect that.
They were a great group when Pierce was in control of himself, but in the late 80's, that would have been seldom. You and your high schoolmates weren't the only ones to taunt him in those days, I suspect.