Tentative Reviews: Art Of Noise-_In Visible Silence_ (1986)
Christopher J Currie
Tentative Review No. 168: Art Of Noise-_In Visible Silence_ (1986)
Track Rating
1. Opus 4 *** 1/2
2. Paranoimia *** 1/2
3. Eye Of A Needle *** 1/2
4. Legs *** 1/2
5. Slip Of A Tongue ****
6. Backbeat ****
7. Instruments Of Darkness **** 1/2
8. Peter Gunn **** 1/2
9. Camilla *****
10. Chameleon's Dish ****
11. Beatback ****
Personnel:
Anne Dudley: keyboards, sampling, vocals
Johnathon J. Jeczalik: keyboards
Gary Langan: sampling, production
Duane Eddy: guitar on "Peter Gunn"
Credits:
All tracks written by Anne Dudley, Johnathon J. Jeczalik & Gary Langan,
except for "Peter Gunn", written by Henry Mancini.
Comments:
The Art Of Noise were (among other things) one of the more elaborate
music/parody projects of the 1980s. The liner notes for their first
album, _(Who's Afraid Of) The Art Of Noise_ (1984), were a takeoff on the
futurist manifestos which emerged from various strands of the European
intelligensia in the early 20th century. The music on the album was
formulated along similar lines. Just as agitprop Russian writers of the
immediate post-revolutionary age were given to wax rhapsodic on a new dawn
of technological glory, so did the Art Of Noise leap boldly forward into a
world of mass-produced, mixed-utility sampling, merging the arts of
composition and production into a newly synthesized form. It was the
meeting point of Henry Ford and Walter Benjamin, in the European dancehalls
a later age -- although it's probably reasonable to assume that a fair
portion of the album's buyers had no idea about the larger "joke" that
was unfolding before their eyes.
This running futurist joke might also have served to deflect some
criticisms from the band. Some listeners, after all, might reasonably
have arrived at the conclusion that some of the music relied too much on
the same samples, or that a few of the beats went on for a few too many
minutes. The band, content in their affected personae, could respond that
such repetition was necessary for conveying new art forms to a mass
audience, and that listeners should seek to accommodate themselves to the
wave of the future.
This joke was rather appropriate for the first album, particularly
given that it was released at about the same time as group member Trevor
Horn was foisting Frankie Goes To Hollywood upon an unsuspecting world.
Perhaps inevitably, however, the Art of Noise was forced to expand from its
original premise on subsequent releases (a process that was made easier by
Horn's apparent departure at this stage[*]). There were still plenty of
repetitive beats to be found on later releases (and it would be difficult
to view their cover of Prince's "Kiss" as anything other than cultural
parody), but there were some musical advances to be found as well [the
bourgeois forms apparently being harder to eliminate than was originally
anticipated]. The joke at the heart of the group's existence has never
completely disappeared, and can still be heard on some parts of their
recent _The Seduction Of Claude Debussy_ release (1999) -- but several
new layers have also appeared over the years.
[*I write "Trevor Horn's apparent departure" because I'm not certain that
he didn't have some hidden role in the Art Of Noise's post-1984 work.
Some copies of _In Visible Silence_ were released with a group picture,
featuring a profile image of a short man in sunglasses talking into a
telephone, his face obscured. One might wonder if this was intended as a
hint.]
_In Visible Silence_, the group's second full-length release, saw
Anne Dudley move into the foreground of the project. The music,
accordingly, runs the full gamut from rigid assembly-line dance music to
lush piano pieces evocative of an earlier age (the English Fabians were
romantics at heart, after all). In the process, the group manages to
touch upon both pop culture and international political developments
without appearing to be overreaching, or overstepping their boundaries.
This can't be considered otherwise than a success, when taken as a whole.
The albums more "mass-produced" sounding tracks are clustered towards
the beginning of the album. "Opus 4", for instance, is exactly the sort
of track that the Art of Noise would become notorious for, the music
being set largely around a series of vocal samples. One of the voices
(perhaps Dudley herself) can be heard describing a desolate landscape
with extremely proper elocution; other voices can be heard chanting
"November", or simply "no". A fair introduction to the album, though not
representative of the band at it's best.
Sadly, this album's version of "Paranoimia" does not feature Max
Headroom (Matt Frewer) on lead vocals -- but there are plenty of random
percussive sounds (spoons on glass, for instance) and time-distorted
vocals to make up the difference. One might wonder, listening to this
piece, if Dudley et al. were updating Phil Spector's "wall of sound" for
the electronic age -- even if the song itself isn't anything really special,
the trademark sonic quality can be counted on to make it worthwhile. In
any event, the track ultimately becomes focused around a breathy vocal
sample, and becomes more than a bit predictable by the end.
"Eye Of A Needle" is apparently one of the group's cultural parody
tracks, featuring a ludicrously distorted lounge-singer vocal sample
and some xylophone effects. The voice, interestingly enough, sounds more
than a bit like that of Trevor Horn -- and, given the cash-till sound
effect used in the song, it's quite feasible that the other group members
were taking a subtle shot at the wealth he made by exploiting Holly
Johnson & co. Even as parody, though, the actual music becomes a bit
tedious after a while.
"Legs" is a more-or-less perfect send-off of the glittery MTV culture
of the age: an extremely poppy track with a trashy horn sample, and the
track's title given a shouted all-girl chorus line treatment. It takes a
bit of patience to appreciate this track, but its interesting elements
can't help but filter through. This leads to "Slip Of A Tongue", an
extremely well-constructed track with a keyboard patch seemingly taken
from _Purple Rain_, and a vocal sample of someone (possibly a classical
music DJ) mispronouncing Brahms's name. (Could the elitism inherent in
pointing out such a mistake be a deliberate juxtaposition to the previous
track's jokey populism? One would be tempted to think so.)
The album's first half ends with "Backbeat", wherein Dudley is
allowed to show off her concert piano skills to great effect. There's an
odd echo effect in the keyboard overlay, and the bass drum sample is like
a sonic punch to the chest. A very good track, despite the quasi-TV-
mystery music themes in its opening moments.
The second half of the album shows off the more accomplished side of
the band. "Instruments Of Darkness" is an epic piece, covering the
uprisings then occurring in the old South Africa. The voices sampled here
include a BBC announcer (describing solitary individuals in darkened
cells), an unidentified African figure, and South African President P.W.
Botha, in his famous speech declaring martial law in some parts of the
nation. Ominous, rather Russian-symphonic musical passages undergird
Botha's calls for "law and order" -- "Your agony must endure forever", he
proclaims, as the music unrelatingly pounds out in the background (though
Dudley does take a piano solo at the very end, perhaps looking towards
some fundamental transformation in the future). There were several other
anti-apartheid songs during this period; this may have been the most
subtly effective.
Following this, we are taken rather abruptly to "Peter Gunn", the
group's remake of Duane Eddy's 1960 hit (with the twangy guitarist himself
making a guest appearance). With its myriad of cut-in sound effects, this
track manages to transcend the pop milleu from which it emerged -- and it's
certainly far more clever than ELP's 1977 remake. The famous Art Of Noise
car-sample makes an appearance here, and Eddy's guitar is given an
interesting echo effect in the fade-out.
"Camilla" constitutes another radical juxtaposition on the album,
coming off as a much more refined work than anything else here. One might
envision a walk beside an English pool, two figures, much unsaid between
them. There's also a certain murkiness in this piece, both in the bass
guitar effect and in Dudley's spoken-word instructions in the background.
Dudley's piano skills are also featured extremely well on this lush
number.
"Chameleon's Dish" takes the project back into pop-art territory,
with more trashy horns, an up-front beat and a poppish keyboard line ...
at least until the sudden switch to a pop-ballad keyboard setting in
mid-track. Then, we hear a sample of maniacal laughter ... and then
another twangy guitar sample. And it's at this point that we realize
we've been the audience for another AoN venture into pop-culture irony,
the band shifting easily between various forms of mass-produced art.
"Beatback" ends the album on an appropriately tongue-in-cheek note,
reprising both "Backbeat" and possibly the Buggles's "Beatnik" [hmm ...].
Dudley provides the listener with further developments in the previous
side's closing piano theme, and album concludes in a vague suspension
between high and popular culture. Which, I suppose, was the point.
Some readers might remember the Art Of Noise merely as a jokey pop
group from the 1980s (and, in fact, both "Paranoimia" and "Peter Gunn"
were minor hits in North America), but there was much to this band than
its most obvious public face. _In Visible Silence_ features the band in
its basic setting, and in its more adventurous moods -- it would make a
good start for someone interested in discovering their music, accordingly.
The Christopher Currie
Visit the Tentative Review website:
www.lodz.pdi.net/~eristic/yes
Henry Potts
>[Posted to a.m.y. because of the Trevor Horn connection.]
>
>Tentative Review No. 168: Art Of Noise-_In Visible Silence_ (1986)
>Personnel:
>
>Anne Dudley: keyboards, sampling, vocals
>Johnathon J. Jeczalik: keyboards
>Gary Langan: sampling, production
Why not post it to a.m.y. because of the Jeczalik and Langan
connections? Both are credited on _90125_.
--
Henry
Christopher J Currie
Well, I don't read the _90125_ liner notes very often ...
The Christopher Currie
Henry Potts
[...]
>> Why not post it to a.m.y. because of the Jeczalik and Langan
>> connections?
>
>Well, I don't read the _90125_ liner notes very often ...
What do you do with your Sunday afternoons then?
--
Henry
Christopher J Currie
> Christopher J Currie <8c...@qlink.queensu.ca> wrote
>>Henry Potts wrote
>>> Why not post it to a.m.y. because of the Jeczalik and Langan
>>> connections?
>>Well, I don't read the _90125_ liner notes very often ...
> What do you do with your Sunday afternoons then?
They're usually spent with peppermint tea and Virginia Woolf novels.
(Seriously, I'd never realized that the other AoN members were involved
with _90125_.)
The Christopher Currie
Henry Potts
>with _90125_.)
The Art of Noise began as a side project for the production crew during
the making of _90125_.
--
Henry
Christopher J Currie
How was Dudley brought in, then?
The Christopher Currie
Henry Potts
>> Christopher J Currie wrote
>>>(Seriously, I'd never realized that the other AoN members were
>>>involved with _90125_.)
>>
>> The Art of Noise began as a side project for the production crew during
>> the making of _90125_.
>
>How was Dudley brought in, then?
She was working with the team on other projects at the time. I think she
first worked with Horn on a track on The Buggles' _Adventures in Modern
Recording_.
--
Henry