REVIEW: Art Of Noise’s “Influence”
Almost 30 years after they formed, Art Of Noise’s impact on music is still being felt, defined, and discussed. They were there when Malcolm McLaren wanted a hint of Afrika Bambaataa’s swagger, and arguably gave hip-hop, through sampling, its initial boom bap. Influence (ZTT) is a 2CD collection that explores the hit songs of a group that never intended to be embraced by radio, and unreleased artifacts from their library of sounds. It is comprehensive for old and new fans alike, but also doubles as a gift for devotees who have absorbed the known. This is the group supplying uncut crystals of the unknown.
Art Of Noise were very much experimentalists who combined a love for soul, funk, classical, and opera with the avant-garde, and musique concrete. While some artists had constructed songs that made attempts to give rhythm to the rhythmless (interpret as you wish), no one had quite done it the way Anne Dudley, Jonathan Jeczalik, and Gary Langan did, all of whom were overseen by producer Trevor Horn. Music journalist Paul Morley became their “voice” and initially the human persona of a group who originally were represented as masks, photographs, and wrenches. It was the unintentional funk of “Beat Box” that made legendary radio DJ Kool DJ Red Alert take notice one day, offering it to a community of listeners who seemed to be waiting for something more distorted and abrasive than the sounds supplied by Sugar Hill Records. It was “Close (To The Edit)” that made people hear the ignition of a car in a different way, but it was also “Moments In Love” that made people hear electronic music as something seductive with the use of only four words (the song title and the repetition of the word “now”).
When the group had internal struggles with their record label, they jumped ship to a new label (China), but it did not take away their heart. Fans will get a chance to “Legs,” “Peter Gunn,” “Paranoimia,” “Ode To Don Jose,” “Dragnet,” and their surprise hit with Tom Jones, their cover of Prince’s “Kiss.” It seemed as if the group made a conscious effort to create properly structured songs, perfect for radio, television, and motion pictures, a slight shift from what they originally started out as. Perhaps for AoN, in order to manipulate art, they in turn had to be artists too. Disc 1 features songs from their last album, The Seduction of Claude Debussy, which also doubled as their return to the ZTT empire.
Even if you have the 4 CD box set And What Have You Done With My Body God?, everything on Disc 2 of Influence will be new to you, as all of it is unreleased. The songs are a mixture of unreleased tracks, alternate mixes, rough demos, and variations of the familiar, not unlike classical music where one might here variations of a theme, or variations of the variation. Some spoken pieces heard in AoN songs are isolated so you’ll get a chance to hear what was recorded without instrumental interruption. Even what was discarded could be turned into new songs, but that will be for the diehard fans to create and mash-up.
Comedy and tragedy: symbols that have represented Art of Noise even when they might have had the last laugh. Influence is the audio story of a group who weren’t a group, but perhaps architects of buildings everyone would end up praising long after its creators went home. Yet within its construction were sounds of hope, fear, sarcasm, shame, and fame, intentional or not.
