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Art Of Noise

Guest Mark X
Guest Mark X
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Art Of Noise ft Max Headroom - Paranoimia (1986)

 

[flash=450,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwHDEE8esCk.swf

 

The Art of Noise was an electronic 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.

 

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 The 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 technological impetus for the Art of Noise was the advent of the Fairlight CMI sampler, an electronic musical instrument 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 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.

 

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. 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.

 

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.

 

After the split, the remaining members moved to the UK-based China Records label, keeping some of the band's original imagery and ethos alive in their second album, In Visible Silence. This album spawned the Grammy Award-winning cover of the Peter Gunn theme, recorded with twangy guitar legend Duane Eddy reprising the lead rather than just being sampled. From this same album, the "Beat Box"-like single "Legs" was a mild underground hit in dance clubs, and in 1986, "Paranoimia" achieved some success when a remix of it was released as a single with overdubbed vocal samples provided by the supposedly computer-generated character Max Headroom. [info courtesy: wikipedia.org]

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