![]() Their next planned appearance would lead to an acrimonious split between the three main members of the group and Horn & Morley. Next up was the BBC’s long running Top Of The Pops where the trio were actually seen for the first time miming and dancing to Close (To The Edit) without their masks and once again in their Moments In Love video. With only two days notice they performed live on the cult Channel Four series The Tube with Morley acting as spokesperson. Dudley, Jeczalik & Langan minus Horn appeared on television for the first time. With the way the group were marketed and perceived, the idea of a totally faceless group began to fade. Two of the most misleading images appeared in the second Beat Box video which saw Morley appearing in the intro and outro with Horn being seen behind a turntable in his SARM studio. Around that time tensions within the group were starting to surface as over the past year the media were crediting everything to Horn & Morley. With a top ten hit behind them, the Art of Noise were now in the public consciousness being featured in teen music magazines and on appearing on radio shows. A second version of Close (To The Edit) appeared in November with a new animated video directed by Andy Morahan which began to propel the group and the track into the UK charts, peaking at number 8 in February 1985. The track illustrated that technology could also be used to make a serious point on a record by sampling news reports, then turning them into a form of 'lyrical performance' as opposed to making music aimed at the dancefloor. A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid) opened the album by highlighting the story of the illegal invasion of the British Commonwealth island of Grenada by the United States. ![]() ![]() The LP featured the two singles released in that year along with the full length version of Moments In Love that appeared on their debut extended play. ![]() In June the Art of Noise’s debut album was released entitled (Who’s Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise!, four months before it was released in the UK, it was vast re-working of a planned and scrapped album called Worship. The single was accompanied by an award winning video directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski that was regarded by some as too violent as it showed traditional instruments being smashed up and cut up with chainsaws. An edited version of (Diversion Two) was issued in the USA as Close (To The Edit) in late June. It is one of the most perfect ambient love songs ever, and I love every second of it.Beat Box (Diversions One and Two) was issued in March 1984 in the UK. If nothing else this LP should held up as a masterclass in 80’s production. Their first album includes the track Moments in love, a subtle, delicate and beautifully paced with gentle breathy vocals barely communicating with the listener after being deliberatly drowned out in the mix. ![]() The air of mystery surrounding the band meant that they could, in a famous mixup, receive an American magazine’s award for best black act of the year, not bad going for five middle-aged, middle-class, white English people… Their ZTT material was ransacked for years on end, culminating in the use of a sample from “Close (To The Edit)” as a key element of Prodigy’s”Firestarter”. 1985’s “Moments In Love” failed to make the UK top fifty but anticipated an entire genre : chillout. In 1984, the “Close (To The Edit)” single crashed into the UK top forty. The experiments of Dudley, Jeczalik and Langan on this project led to the formation of The Art Of Noise. McLaren foresaw the rise of hip-hop and recruited producer Trevor Horn to record his musical vision. Apparently, the roots of Art Of Noise lie in Malcolm McLaren‘s 1982 single “Buffalo Gals”. I’ve been listening to a lot of 80’s music recently and rediscovered Art of noise first album, Who’s afraid of the Art of noise, released in 1984. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |