| Art of Noise |
| Background information |
| Origin |
 London, England |
| Genre(s) |
Synthpop, Avantgarde, Ambient,
New Wave |
| Years active |
1983 – 1990
1998
– 2000 |
| Label(s) |
ZTT
Island
China
Chrysalis
Polydor
Off-Beat
Discovery
Sire
Warner Music Europe
Universal
Repetoire |
| Former members |
Anne
Dudley
J.J.
Jeczalik
Gary
Langan
Trevor
Horn
Paul
Morley
Lol
Crème |
Art of Noise Edited twelve inch single featured the iconic Art of Noise
mask
Art of Noise was an avant-garde
synthpop
group formed in 1983 by producer Trevor
Horn, music journalist Paul Morley, and session
musicians/studio hands Anne Dudley, J.J.
Jeczalik, and Gary Langan. The group's
mostly instrumental compositions were novel and often clever melodic sound
collages based on digital sampler technology,
which was new at the time. Inspired by turn-of-the-century revolutions
in music, the Art of Noise was initially packaged as a faceless anti-
or non-group, blurring the distinction between the art and its
creators. The band is noted for their innovative use of electronics
and computers
in pop
music and particularly for innovative use of sampling.
The name of the group alludes to an essay by noted futurist
Luigi
Russolo.
From the earliest releases on ZTT, the band referred to
themselves as both Art of Noise and The
Art of Noise. The version with the prefix article "The" was
often preferred by third parties. To add to the confusion both official
and unofficial releases and press material from the same releases use
both versions, but Art of Noise is preferred.
|
Contents
- 1 History
- 1.1 Beginnings
- 1.2 Art
for art's sake
- 1.3 Changes
- 1.4 Hits
and misses
- 1.5 Compilations
and solo
- 1.6 Other
appearances
- 1.7 Reformation
- 1.8 Dissolution
and re-releases
- 2 Selected
discography
- 2.1 Albums
- 2.2 Singles
- 2.3 Compilation
and remix albums
- 3 DVD
- 4 Chart
positions
- 5 Band
members
- 6 See
also
- 7 References
- 8 External
links
|
History
Beginnings
In 1983, Trevor Horn, who had achieved a New
Wave hit in 1979 with "Video Killed The Radio
Star", which he recorded with Geoff Downes under the name Buggles, was
working in the studio with Yes on what would become the
album 90125, and
with Frankie Goes to Hollywood
on what would become the album Welcome to the
Pleasuredome. In his employ were
keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, keyboardist/programmer J.J. Jeczalik,
and mixing engineer Gary Langan. The team had first assembled in 1981
to produce ABC's The
Lexicon of Love album (which led to an instant
increase in profile for all concerned). Though other possibilities are
quite feasible, the most universal element in the group's naming seems
to be the ubiquitous, bargain-bin "art of..." classical releases put
out by second-rate record companies.
The technological impetus for the Art of Noise was the advent
of the Fairlight CMI sampler, an electronic
musical instrument invented in Australia that Horn was reportedly among
the first to purchase. With the Fairlight, short digital sound
recordings called samples could be "played" through a
piano-like keyboard, while a computer processor altered such
characteristics as pitch and timbre. While some
musicians were using samples as adornment in their works, Horn and his
companions saw the potential to craft entire compositions with the
sampler, tossing the traditional rock aesthetic out the window, or at
least turning it on its ear. It should be noted that others were
working contemporaneously towards this goal: see Jean
Michel Jarre and Yello.
Producer and musician Tony Mansfield had made
extensive use of the Fairlight for Naked
Eyes eponymous debut album (the first pop album to feature
such a hefty dosage of the CMI). Horn had previously put the sampling
keyboard to great usage on The
Lexicon of Love, mostly in order to tweak live-based
elements of performance, but also to embellish the compositions with
sound effects (such as a cash register's bell on "Date Stamp").
Samples—some borrowed from other pieces of music, such as the
baritone "dum" from "Leave It" by Yes, but most coming from
original sources—were bathed in reverb to mask the early sampler's low
fidelity (or give a "concert hall" acoustic effect). One might imagine
the voice of Elvis Presley's first syllable from the chorus of "I Can't
Help Falling In Love With You" popping up on the first album. In the
studio, these sounds were then assembled into various instrumental
arrangements and sound collages. This was at first done with very
little input from musicians "playing" instruments as they would in a
typical band, but later works introduced traditional instruments as
well.
In February 1983, with Paul Morley providing much of the
band's art direction, Horn, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan formed the
initial incarnation of The Art of Noise. The group's debut EP, Into Battle With
The Art of Noise, appeared in September 1983 on
Horn's fledgling ZTT label. It immediately scored a hit
in the urban and alternative dance charts in the USA
with the highly percussive, cut-up instrumental track "Beat
Box", a favorite among breakdancers.
The base hook of this song also famously featured as the theme
tune to popular ITV
game show The Krypton Factor. This theme
tune also appeared on the Fresh FM station in Grand Theft Auto
Vice City Stories
- Anne: When the group first started we thought it would be a
good idea to have an image that wasn't based around a fashion look. We
thought it would encourage people to look at the music instead of the
members of the band. It didn't last for long though.
- Gary: It really doesn't seem a lot different actually, the
responsibility a lot more different, it's probably more fun, more risk
to it.
- Anne: There's a very big risk in America because they think
we're black, we were voted the second best new black act. We are
wondering how we can quite cope with this.
- Gary: There was at one point there came along an instrument
that nobody had really used and we were lucky that we had one we could
use. There are certain things you can do with it that you're not able
to do with anything else. So it was a question of experimenting with
that and things really took off from there.
- Anne: This is the famous Fairlight music computer, which
you may have heard of.
- Gary: Which plays an important part. I really think that
the music is more important than the personality. The fashion around a
personality seems to change a lot quicker than that around music.
Art for art's sake
Morley managed the packaging of the project as a faceless
"non-group", a work of art, itself, that merely existed. Band members
never appeared in photos without masks, and sleeve art was filled with manifestos,
quotes, photographs, and graphic design elements that stood in stark
contrast to the unimaginative photo-of-the-band-and-some-lyrics motifs
that were typical at the time. Musically, aside from the cleverness of
deftly juxtaposing found sounds, the project was also intended to pay
homage to the influence of Claude Debussy, who revolutionized
popular music at the beginning of the 20th
century, and to the sonic "Art of Noises" experiments of Italian
Futurist
Luigi
Russolo.
The early videos for "Close
(to the Edit)" were groundbreaking and unusual, becoming cult favorites
on MTV.
Critics' reviews of Into Battle
and the more fully realized Who's Afraid Of
The Art Of Noise? album (1984)
were mixed, with some hailing the group's unique, deconstructive
approach to sound and song construction, and others dismissing them as
a pretentious novelty band.
By 1987, the band's membership was down
to just Jeczalik and Dudley. That year saw the release of their album In No Sense? Nonsense!.
The album featured Jeczalik's most advanced rhythmic collages to date,
plus lush string arrangements, pieces for boys' choir, and keyboard
melodies from Dudley. It didn't score any hits, although their record
label tried mightily to push remixes of "Dragnet"
into the dance clubs. The album is often regarded by fans to be among
their best work, despite the inclusion of arguably novelty tracks
composed for the soundtracks of the movies Dragnet
and Disorderlies. Less faithful critics, however,
criticised the album for being too pretentious, and lacking in the
humour and catchiness that characterised previous releases. The album
contained amongst its tracks a piece that combined new age piano
and the rapping of the Fat Boys ("Roller 1"). The Art of
Noise appeared to have taken inspiration from fellow sonic collage
artist Boris Blank (of Yello) with this
track : though the melodic compositions are significantly
different , it bears a striking resemblance to the programming used on
Yello's "Let
Me Cry".
Hits and misses
In 1988, a one-off collaboration with
singer Tom Jones, a cover of Prince's
"Kiss"
(a staple in Jones' stage shows) renewed the public's interest in the
Art of Noise and provided the group's biggest hit in the mainstream.
The track appeared on several albums by Jones, and China Records
included the song on the greatest hits compilation The Best
of the Art of Noise, the first edition of which also
contained tracks licensed from ZTT.
The follow up album, Below
the Waste, failed to achieve much success upon
its release in 1989. While it did spawn the memorable
single "Yebo!", featuring the unique vocals of Zulu performers Mahlathini and
the Mahotella Queens, and what appears to be a Mancini tribute
in the form of "Robinson Crusoe", some critics felt the album was a
hollow imitation of its predecessors, lacking the aesthetic and
creative fullness of previous releases.
Compilations and solo
In 1990, Dudley and Jeczalik declared the
Art of Noise was done; they had officially disbanded.
The rest of the decade saw China Records releasing various Art
of Noise compilations: The Ambient Collection, The
FON Mixes, The Drum and Bass Collection, Art
Works, and reissues of Best Of without
the ZTT-era tracks. Some of these featured new remixes by other
artists. The China label eventually folded.
Although Dudley and Jeczalik had already dissolved the group,
in 1990 they assisted in the promotion of the lightly remixed
compilation The Ambient Collection that the China
label released to cash in on the burgeoning ambient
house scene, and Jeczalik approved the remixes that appeared on The
FON Mixes the following year.
Dudley became well-known for composing numerous film and
television scores in the 1990s. The most famous of these is probably The
Full Monty, which won an Academy Award
for Original Music Score.
In 1995–1997,
Jeczalik and In No Sense? Nonsense! co-engineer Bob
Kraushaar produced a number of instrumentals oriented toward
dance clubs under the name Art of Silence, issuing an album titled artofsilence.co.uk.
Jeczalik also embarked on a new career in trading in futures
contracts.
Other appearances
Four-fifths of The Art of Noise worked on the Yes
album 90125, with
Trevor Horn producing, Gary Langan engineering, and Anne Dudley and
J.J. Jeczalik providing arrangements and keyboard programming. Many of
the samples used on that album also appear on Into Battle.
The same four also appeared on Malcolm
McLaren's 1982 album Duck Rock
and the 1982 album The Lexicon Of Love
by ABC,
on which Dudley also co-wrote a track and began her scoring career.
The Art of Noise are also credited for the music to the ITV series, The
Krypton Factor.
Anne Dudley and Killing Joke's Jaz
Coleman collaborated on the 1990 album Songs from the
Victorious City, inspired by a trip the two made to Egypt.
Art of Noise also get a full writing credit for The
Prodigy's Firestarter.
Anne Dudley produced two tracks for the 1993 Deborah Harry
album "Debravation"
- "Strike Me Pink" and "Mood Ring", as well as co-writing and playing
keyboard on "Strike Me Pink". She has scored orchestrations for dozens
of pop releases over the years, and both scored and produced the album Voice
for her neighbor Alison Moyet. Cathy
Dennis added lyrics to one of Dudley's compositions and
recorded it as "Too Many Walls," which became a US Top 10 hit in 1991. Also, Dudley won
the Academy
Award for best original score (musical or comedy) for The
Full Monty.
Reformation
Shades of Paranoimia, the single release from The FON Mixes
According to an interview with J.J. Jeczalik reported in the
ZTT fanzine Outside World,
in 1991,
Jeczalik, Anne Dudley, and Gary Langan were inspired by the commercial
success of The FON Mixes and had discussed
reuniting the group as a trio again. In preparation to record a new
album, J.J. and Gary traveled to Cuba to gather new source material.
However, no new recordings were produced with the new lineup, and the
Art of Noise remained defunct.
In 1998, Trevor Horn, Paul Morley, and
Anne Dudley began talking about the original intent of the project, its
relevance in 20th century music, and the impending turn of a new
century. The group temporarily reformed, adding virtuoso guitarist Lol Crème
but leaving J.J. Jeczalik conspicuously absent.
A new single, Dreaming In Colour, very
much in the "progressive" trance/house
vein, was leaked to club DJs later that year. A second single, Metaforce
featuring a rap
by Rakim
preceded the 1999 release of the concept album The Seduction of
Claude Debussy on the ZTT label.
The Seduction album marked an evolution,
rather than a return to the band's glory days, taking the form of a
cohesive concept album depicting the life and
works of Claude Debussy. However, while
impressive from a technical and critical standpoint, it failed to score
as a pop album.
Dissolution and re-releases
After performing a handful of live shows in the UK and U.S.,
the band dissolved.
The ZTT label continues to reissue archive material, such as a
remastered Into Battle... on CD (with bonus tracks,
but substituting the original version of "Beat Box" with the later
"Diversion One"), and a compilation SACD
called Reconstructed. In early 2004,
the Karvavena
label released an Art of Noise tribute album, The Abduction
of The Art of Noise. This album contains covers of various
tracks, including a new version of "Beat Box" performed by J.J.
Jeczalik under his Art of Silence moniker.
August
21, 2006 saw
ZTT release a 4-CD Art Of Noise box set, entitled And What
Have You Done With My Body, God?, consisting of tracks
exclusively from the 1983-85 ZTT era, from the initial tentative demos
created by Gary Langan and JJ Jeczalik in the wake of the Yes
90125 sessions to selections from the Ambassadors
Theatre performances featuring Horn and Morley, recorded at concerts
profiling ZTT acts, prior to which Langan, Jeczalik and Dudley had
abandoned the label and, for the time being, the band. The set featured
over 40 unreleased remixes, demos and works-in-progress, as well as the
complete vinyl version of Into Battle..., sourced
from the original masters, for the first time on CD. It also included a
36-page book featuring new interviews with all of the original members.
Selected discography
Albums
Art of Noise, Art of Love
Art of Noise Legacy
One side of Reworks is live material, the other remixes. The pictures
of the band on the reverse were covered with stickers on some copies
- Into Battle with
the Art of Noise mini-album
(1983)
- Who's Afraid of
the Art of Noise? (1984)
- In Visible Silence
(1986)
- In No Sense? Nonsense!
(1987)
- Below the Waste
(1989)
- The Seduction of
Claude Debussy (1999)
Singles
- "Beat Box" (1983)
- "Moments in Love" (1983) and (1985)
- "Close (to the Edit)" (1984)
- "Legs" (1985)
- "Paranoimia"
featuring Max Headroom (1986)
- "Peter Gunn" featuring Duane Eddy (1986)
— Grammy
Award winner in 1987
- "Legacy" (1986)
- "Dragnet" (1987)
- "Kiss" (1988)
- "Yebo!" featuring Mahlathini and Mahotella Queens (1989)
- "Art of Love"
- "Shades of Paranoimia"
- "Dreaming in Colour" (1998)
- "Metaforce" featuring Rakim (1999)
Compilation and remix albums
- Daft (1984)
- Re-works of Art of Noise (1987)
- The Best of the Art of Noise (1988)
- The Ambient Collection
(1990)
- The FON Mixes (1991)
- The Best of the Art of Noise (1992
reissue with different tracks)
- The Drum and Bass Collection (1996)
- Belief System / Bashful
/ An Extra Pulse Of Beauty (1999)
- Reduction (2000)
- The Abduction of the Art of Noise (2003)
- Reconstructed (2004)
- And What Have You Done With My Body, God?
4-CD box
set (2006)
DVD
- The Art of Noise: "Into Vision", (2002): four different
concerts between 1999
and 2000 in Chicago, (The
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival) in California,
in Shepherd's Bush, London and in Wembley, London.
Chart positions
Singles
| Year |
Title |
Chart positions |
Album |
| US Hot 100 |
US Modern Rock |
UK |
| 1984 |
"Beat Box" |
- |
n/a |
#92 |
Into Battle with the Art of Noise
(EP) |
| 1984 |
"Close (to the Edit)" |
- |
n/a |
#8 |
Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? |
| 1985 |
"Moments in Love" |
- |
n/a |
#51 |
Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? |
| 1986 |
"Paranoimia" (feat. Max Headroom) |
#34 |
n/a |
#12 |
remixed from In Visible Silence |
| 1986 |
"Legs" |
- |
n/a |
#69 |
In Visible Silence |
| 1986 |
"Peter Gunn" (feat. Duane Eddy) |
#50 |
n/a |
#8 |
In Visible Silence |
| 1987 |
"Dragnet" |
- |
n/a |
#60 |
In·No·Sense? Nonsense! |
| 1988 |
"Kiss" (feat. Tom
Jones) |
#31 |
#14 |
#5 |
The Best of the Art of Noise |
| 1989 |
"Yebo!" (feat. Mahlathini and
the Mahotella Queens) |
- |
- |
#63 |
Below The Waste |
| 1990 |
"Art of Love" |
- |
- |
#67 |
The Ambient Collection |
| 1991 |
"Instruments of Darkness (All Of Us Are One People)" |
- |
- |
#45 |
The FON Mixes |
| 1991 |
"Shades of Paranoimia" |
- |
- |
#53 |
The FON Mixes |
| 1999 |
"Metaforce" (feat. Rakim) |
- |
- |
#53 |
The Seduction of Claude Debussy |
Band members
Official Art of Noise members
| 1983-1985 |
|
| 1985-1987 |
- Anne Dudley
- J.J. Jeczalik
- Gary Langan
|
| 1987-1990 |
- Anne Dudley
- J.J. Jeczalik
|
| 1998-2000 |
- Anne Dudley
- Trevor Horn
- Paul Morley
- Lol Creme
|
See also
- List of
Number 1 Dance Hits (United States)
- List
of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
References
-
Interview with Selina Scott and Nick Ross, BBC Breakfast Time, on the
release of "Legs" single
