Art of Noise Whos Afraid of the Art of Noise Full Album

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RECORD COLLECTOR

Writer: Martin O'Gorman

Circa: July 1999

WHO'S AFRAID?

Not PAUL MORLEY, certainly. He'south back with a new anthology with his

studio combo THE Fine art OF NOISE. MARTIN O'GORMAN is Listening

You may retrieve a immature ne'er-do-well named Keith Flint, grimacing and posturing to his group's 1996 No. 1 hitting, "Firestarter". Listeners of a certain age will also recollect that the Prodigy used a rather startling sample from a classic single of old. It went "Hey! Hey!", and it was from "Close (To The Edit)" past the Fine art Of Noise, their Summit 10 nail from 1984. What's ironic Is that the group who pilfered, remixed and remodelled other people's tunes and noises, turning them into a brand new artform, have become the institution from whom young whippersnappers now choose to thieve.

Only the AON are not taking it lying down. They're back with original members Paul Morley, Anne Dudley and Trevor Horn for the first time since 1985, and they've got a new album, "The Seduction Of Claude Debussy", to prove that they're still pushing forward the frontiers of sound. "It's a keen 20th Century thing," says Morley of sampling culture. "I like the thought that what nosotros make out of nowhere so becomes raw material for other people. I find that one of the great technological miracles of the last few years, and think it'southward wonderful. It probably makes me happy."

But, is Mr. Morley happy with his new album? "When we do the Art Of Dissonance, we really like it to be something that volition chal-lenge us and be a bit insane," he ponders. "Hopefully, people don't quite know what to make of information technology. I mean, are you happy with the record?" Er, I was pleasantly surprised at how ambience it was, says your reporter, slightly taken aback. Morley just laughs.

"I'thousand always a chip fussy about genres," he says of the 'ambience' tag. "The kind of tape that we were going to make tended to exist similar that, and when nosotros got noisy information technology didn't suit what we wanted to practise. It's more than similar a dream about something. Information technology's music based around somebody'due south dream, and well-nigh our dream. We're sort of dreaming well-nigh ourselves." Dream on ...

SEDUCING THE CLASSICS
With titles similar "Born On A Sunday" and "Guess Mood Swing No. ii" signalling different, er, movements in the continuous catamenia of music, "The Seduction Of Claude Debussy" would appear to be - whisper it softly - a concept album?

"Well, it'due south a themed ride," says Morley. "But the word 'concept' kind of brings me out in a cold sweat. What nosotros wanted to practise was make a kind of entertainment - a lot of albums these days tend to be thrown together. Record companies put force per unit area on people to come up with two singles, and so the rest of the album is meant to demark that together. The kind of entertainment that we wanted to make is like a picture that you could imagine for yourself. It has to take a beginning, a heart and an stop, we wanted all those things to go on. Nosotros were very keen that y'all moved through the tape, and were moved, that information technology wasn't a series of B-sides and, anthology mixes, and that the whole thing was an amusement."

But why Claude Debussy? What's he ever done to deserve such treatment? "With the end of the century coming, we came up with this idea of doing versions of songs that were actually written a hundred years agone. Nosotros idea that going into the next century doing songs from the turn of the concluding century was a really good idea. Nosotros liked to cover the original music of someone who invented a lot of the rules of harmony and rhythm which accept influenced all 20th Century music, right through to jazz and pop. So we thought at that place was something we could do with that, applying mod technological innovations to music that was made with acoustic instruments, with no sampling or electronics involved. We'd brand this bizarre mixture of the onetime and the new. That just seemed to be an nice kind of Fine art Of Noise idea."

A Time TO HEAR
Morley began his career every bit a Northern correspondent for the NME, reporting from the frontline as the Sex Pistols brought their revolutionary ideas to the home of dark satanic mills, sending despatches from Manchester's punk mecca, the Electric Circus. He, quickly gained a reputation for frighteningly verbose reportage, which impressed erstwhile Yeah human and top-notch producer, Trevor Horn, who in 1979 was enjoying a No. i hit with the Buggies and "Video Killed The Radio Star". Morely went to interview Horn, who was so intrigued by the Mancunian'southward ideas that he enlisted his help on hereafter projects. When Horn prepare his characterization, ZTT, at that place was but one proper name pencilled in for Marketing Executive.

Morley and Horn signed studio experts JJ. Jeczalik and Gary Langan to the fledgling label in 1983, hooking them up with arranger Anne Dudley, and naming the collective the Art Of Noise. Their kickoff EP, "Into Battle With . . ." didn't fix the globe alight, even though information technology was released on the relatively new format of cassette single. It wasn't until the tertiary single, "Close (To The Edit)", that the public tuned in, sending information technology to No. 8 in Novem-ber 1984. The rails, which fabricated maximum utilise of the new Fairlight Computer Synthesiser, was a startling cutting-up of sounds, beats, and vocal snippets that influenced a generation - one that included the Prodigy.

A reissue of their second single, "Moments In Dearest", introduced the general public to more ambient textures, but some grouping members weren't happy with Morley's role equally "Director". His eccentric marketing methods irritated Dudley, Jecazlik and Langan, who were replaced in publicity shots by a foreign, hooded effigy whose face was covered by an enigmatic mask. Weird. Likewise weird was ZTT's BPI-baiting multi-format ex-travaganza, which resulted in at least four different versions of "Close (To The Edit)" bearing the same catalogue number. A verita-ble nightmare for discographers, and a trick that Morley also pulled with scally superstars Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Morley remains unrepentant on the subject area of multi-formatting: "Remix or dice! I love the idea that things can be endlessly refashioned. We have an anthology that is the sort of fundamental planet, and so everything will brainstorm to orbit around information technology and create this kind of galaxy of mixes and versions, incessantly refashioning the original thought, the central bespeak. You send it out to be remixed, and within a few days y'all've got a new version of the dream. Hopefully in nearly vi months fourth dimension, 'The Seduction of Claude Debussy' becomes 'The Abduction', then vi months after that, there's 'The Reduction'." Does the introduction of the internet and CD-ROM engineering science have a function to play in this process now? "Yeah, that volition probably exist the 4th affair to happen 'The Masturbation Of Claude Debussy'."

THEY'RE Back! BACK! Dorsum!
Such shenanigans promoted Dudley, Jeczalik and Langan to leave ZTT for Red china Records in 1985, taking the proper name with them, as they considered themselves responsible for "98.98% of the music". While Morley became a well-known pop pundit and Horn went back to the studio where he was well-nigh at home, the other members seemed to turn version ii of the Art Of Noise into some-thing of a novelty band. Loftier profile collaborations with computer-cartoon Goggle box presenter, Max Headroom, twangy guitarist Duane Eddy and - God help u.s. - Tom Jones, all made the charts, but the band lost a cracking deal of credibility. Even dipping a toe into the blissed-out world of ambient remixes couldn't help terminate the law of diminishing returns, and past what seemed like the 99th mix of "Paranoimia", the Fine art Of Noise appeared to call information technology a solar day.

"Working with Trevor Horn once more is fabulous," says Paul Morley of version three of the grouping. "It's like being in a film that'south being directed past Stanley Kubrick, considering information technology's total of wonderful excesses, baroque moments, and the constantly unexpected. It'south a wonderful 20th Century dreamwork, you find yourself hallucinating about sound." Morley also enthuses about picking up his collaboration with the now Oscar-nominated Anne Dudley: "One of the things that we wanted to do with the Art Of Noise which we didn't used to do so much, was not use any samples. Originally, we used to sample everything from effectually u.s.a., from our environ-ment, and this time we wanted to generate the music from within. In a sense it all came from Anne's original, organic playing, which we then built around, and so it's hopefully an Art Of Noise anthology without any samples. Apart from internal samples, where we generate the music and then sample that, but we've not actually gone outside to bring in any samples at all, because we did all that a fairly long fourth dimension ago - 1912 or some-thing. This time nosotros thought it would be actually cute to not practice that."

There's as well a fourth fellow member in the AON to add to the mix (and indeed, the remix): old 10cc man and video/studio boffin, Lol Creme: "We were very smashing on the idea of in that location existence 4 members," says Morley. "Four members is the ideal pop group - Beatles, Buzzcocks, I just remember you've gotta have four, it's kind of a surreal Monkees. Lol but happened to be in the room when nosotros started working, and lo and behold, he stayed. He came to the meetings. Music these days is simply put into machines and constantly sculptured. We'd put all the ammunition in, and the 4 of us would then suit it, making it plough out in the shape information technology's turned out. Lol was simply part of the process."

HEY! HEY!
While the Noise of old collaborated with trash-pop icons, Version 3.0 take enlisted the services of one of this country'due south superlative actors, John Hurt. "One of the great things about being in a pop group is that you tin can start to invent your own gang," laughs Morley. "I loved the idea of having a gang where nosotros had John Hurt, Roni Size and Rakim, this weird Magnificent Seven. I liked the thought of John Injure as the ghost who narrates it, this guy who was one time in Alien and had some-matter come up out of his tummy. He was in one case Bob Champion, and he's in the new David Lynch film, and then information technology's something that intensifies the fantasy. In the end, it'due south the voice as well, he added a musical texture. If we wanted a vocalism, we could imagine no better vox."

What did Morley think of the Prodigy taking the Fine art Of Noise's vocalisation? "Oh, it was simply a great pop record, information technology's sort of a manus--me-down, similar a form of time-travelling, I really like that." Are they doing the same thing as the AON did in the 80s? "Not really, no. Maybe in some kind of spirit. It's in the aforementioned area, only they're a bit angrier. We're angry on the placidity, you know."

"I think the old records are very entertaining," he continues. "I think they're still what they were, and they don't audio like A Flock Of Seagulls or anything. So I kind of similar that, that they were of the moment, but that they travel though fourth dimension as well without sounding too quaint." But is Morley trying to avoid the whole 1980s reunion bandwagon that's currently fashionable? "One would hope then. I never really felt we belonged to the 80s. Being fairly invisible, it'due south not equally though nosotros're making a comeback, we've just come up here again. Nosotros've never gone on that career trajectory – It's not similar we've reformed for many of the reasons other bands reform, for vanity and money, information technology's more the thing itself. The thought of it brought me out in a cold sweat again, but there'southward nothing yous can do about it. It'south 1 of those things that's Involved when y'all accept to go out and start selling yourself."

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Source: http://theartofnoiseonline.com/Z999-Who%27s-Afraid.php

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