The Art of Noise
Michael Lippe
I can tell you all about them. Imagine being locked in a 6'x6' closet with
the amplified sounds of your three nieces screeching in dissonant tones at
170 dcbls. Add to that, a projection screen with 3 months worth of Yesdick
posts shown over and over again while your eyes are held open, ala Clockwork
Orange. Add shackles to your hands and feet, the sickening sweet and rancid
smell of cat urine. There you have it : Art of Noise. Are you sure this is
for you?
--
Mike >:-)_~
"...and that's all I need...well, maybe that too..."
YESLIP wrote in message <199805300454...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>Who can tell me about The Art of Noise? As far as I know, this was a
project
>(band?) of Trevor Horn's in the mid to late '80's that specialized and
>innovated some cool techno sounds. My roommate in college bought the first
AoN
>LP, and I heard it just a couple of times, and I was impressed. i never
did
>buy any of their albums though. Can anyone tell me how many albums AoN
made,
>and which are the best and why? It may be time to reinvestigate.
Thanks
>
>Yeslip
>yes...@aol.com
YESLIP
Scott McDaniel
Michael Lippe wrote:
>
> I can tell you all about them. Imagine being locked in a 6'x6' closet with
> the amplified sounds of your three nieces screeching in dissonant tones at
> 170 dcbls. Add to that, a projection screen with 3 months worth of Yesdick
> posts shown over and over again while your eyes are held open, ala Clockwork
> Orange. Add shackles to your hands and feet, the sickening sweet and rancid
> smell of cat urine. There you have it : Art of Noise. Are you sure this is
> for you?
>
Okay. I have the image. Sounds kinda cool... But, do you LIKE them?
Scott "Close to the edit room floor" McDaniel
--
EverQuest: If it's Outdoors, an Object or a Spell...I did it.
Mathias Thallmayer
Michael Lippe wrote:
>
> I can tell you all about them. Imagine being locked in a 6'x6' closet with
> the amplified sounds of your three nieces screeching in dissonant tones at
> 170 dcbls. Add to that, a projection screen with 3 months worth of Yesdick
> posts shown over and over again while your eyes are held open, ala Clockwork
> Orange. Add shackles to your hands and feet, the sickening sweet and rancid
> smell of cat urine. There you have it : Art of Noise. Are you sure this is
> for you?
I don't know who this describes but it's not the Art of Noise.
--
Mathias
Stephen P. Goodman
As evidenced by the other responses to your post, the default "It's
not for everybody" would apply.
I myself love AoN, and remember as far back as '82, reading an
interview with Keith Richard, who marvelled at their "use of
motorcycles as percussion," which made me think about buying the
album. For some odd reason, I couldn't find it in the stores, and
ended up only being exposed to "Close (to the Edit)" and its video,
which REALLY pissed the purists off, especially the
chainsaw-meets-piano scene, all of it underlined visually by the
almost-too-young girl in full punk regalia throughout the vid. I
think without the girl the visuals might have not lasted actually -
and I'm not an enthusiast for such things either. But it made enough
of an impact on the NYC club scene to eventually get fairly regular
airing on MTV. And, some years later, when MTV was still not a
Television Network in the mundane sense, they ran an AoN concert video
on their Saturday night series (I think, around '87).
As far as their sound, it's been stolen so much it's not funny. I
hope they're getting paid for at least 30% of the sampling that uses
their albums. They utilized themes and elements formerly found in
Musique Concrete, and other non-American concepts, and generally blew
most folks away. I don't know anyone who "sort of" likes or hates
them, actually.
Stephen Goodman * It's... The Loop Of The Week (this week dedicated
to Phil Hartman)!
EarthLight Studios * http://www.earthlight.net/Studios
YESLIP wrote in message
<199805300454...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
Bill.
Mathias Thallmayer wrote in message <356FAE...@erols.com>...
>Michael Lippe wrote:
>I don't know who this describes but it's not the Art of Noise.
It does to me, they were dreadful.
Bill.
Rush3671
yes...@sol.com said:
>Who can tell me about The Art of Noise? As far as I know, this was a project
>(band?) of Trevor Horn's in the mid to late '80's that specialized and
>innovated some cool techno sounds. My roommate in college bought the first
>AoN
>LP, and I heard it just a couple of times, and I was impressed. i never did
>buy any of their albums though. Can anyone tell me how many albums AoN made,
>and which are the best and why? It may be time to reinvestigate. Thanks
>
Each album has its own distinct feel, really. My favorite is "In No Sense?
Nonsense!" which is probably their most musically diverse -- bits of pop,
techno, choir music, classical, weird yodeling, even hip-hop, and the sounds of
motorcycles, aircraft, horses' hooves and cars starting being used as backbeats
-- all banded together into one long song cycle.
The project was Trevor Horn's brainchild. AIUI, it came about when Trevor was
working with programmer J.J. Jeczalik and engineer Gary Langan on 90125. (Check
those liner notes -- they're in there.) The idea behind the project seemed to
be to create an indentity-less band (promo shots always concealed the band
members' faces) that created music with machines and by sampling bits of other
people's works -- a humanless band, sort of a jab at the faceless direction
that technology was taking music in at that time. The subtle satire
disappeared, though, when the other members of the band decided to shuck Horn
and do the music they did for the sake of actually *doing* it, as a legitimate
pop band, rather than a parody of a pop band.
The band was originally billed as a five-piece, but Trevor and Paul Morley
worked behind the scenes and had little or nothing to do with the music itself.
Langan was the engineer; Jecazlik tended to handle the samples (in other words,
the Fairlights and Synclaviers) and the basic keyboard work, and Anne Dudley
wrote the melodies and played the dominant keyboards.
There are literally dozens of remixes and rare tracks out there on 12-inch
singles that are almost impossible to find anymore. In fact, I think their
entire catalog of original work is out of print now, sadly. The "official"
releases that I know of are:
1. Into Battle with the Art of Noise -- an EP that includes the original
version of "Beatbox," which prominently features the horn blast from "OoaLH."
2. Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? -- A new version of "Beatbox," the debut
of "Close to the Edit," which also uses the "OoaLH" horn blast, and a lot of
obscure vocal and musical snippets, vocal tape loops, and all-around
avant-garde oddities. Includes what is alleged to be the first use of
record-scratching on a recording, and given this was 1984, that may very well
be the case.
3. Daft -- A reissue of material from the first two albums, with some 12-inch
remixes thrown in.
3. In Visible Silence -- The first album without Horn and Morley. Their most
blatant attempt at being a straightforward pop band, albeit one that still
existed almost completely by using samples to create their compositions.
Features guest artists Max Headroom (remember him?) on "Paranoimia" and '60s
twang guitarist Duane Eddy on "Peter Gunn," which is a damn lot better and a
lot more fun than ELP's version, IMHO. Classical influence also starts to show
up, courtesy of Dudley, on "Instruments of Darkness," in the form of a dramatic
string section and a brief snippet from "Mars, the Bringer of War."
4. Re-Works of the Art of Noise -- I've never heard nor seen this album. It
apparently was a very limited release, including some remixes from "In Visible
Silence" and a few live tracks.
5. In No Sense? Nonsense! -- The only weakness on this album is the cover of
"Dragnet" -- this version being the theme for the movie remake. The rest of the
album is phenomenal.
6. The Best of the Art of Noise -- Lots of long remixes; msot notable for the
minimalist rendition of Prince's "Kiss," featuring Tom Jones (yep) on vocals.
7. Below the Waste -- Their last studio album, with the band reduced to a duo
of Jeczalik and Dudley. Sharply divided between Dudley's outright classical
pieces and Jeczalik's poppy tunes, and the interesting samples that made their
music unique are missing completely on some of these tracks, "Dilemma" being
the one happy exception. Their rendition of the James Bond Theme is completely
flaccid. Their creativity seemed to be sapped on this album, and thankfully
they broke up afterwards.
Not sure about the order of release on the remainder, but it doesn't really
matter, as everything else simply features other producers'/engineers' remixes
of the orignal music: "The Ambient Collection"; "The FON Mixes"; "The Drum and
Bass Collection': and a 3-CD box that simply repackages them all. The "Best of"
album was also repcakaged to include some of the remixes and a track or two
from "Below the Waste."
Jeczalik put out a solo album a year or two ago called The Art of Silence.
Dudley, Horn, Morley and Lol Creme (as in Godley & Creme) are working on a new
AoN project now, supposedly based around the music of Debussy and featuring a
computer-generated lead singer. The album is supposed to be coming out in the
fall.
Whew. Hope this helps.
Adrian M. Rush
--in love with Anne Dudley
Henry Potts
YESLIP <yes...@aol.com> writes
>Who can tell me about The Art of Noise? As far as I know, this was a project
>(band?) of Trevor Horn's in the mid to late '80's that specialized and
>innovated some cool techno sounds. My roommate in college bought the first AoN
>LP, and I heard it just a couple of times, and I was impressed. i never did
>buy any of their albums though. Can anyone tell me how many albums AoN made,
>and which are the best and why? It may be time to reinvestigate. Thanks
The Art of Noise began as a collaboration among the behind the scenes
people at Trevor Horn's ZTT label: Horn, Paul Morley, J.J. Jeczalik and
Anne Dudley. The band soon reduced to just Jeczalik and Dudley and
continued like that until recently.
There is now a new AoN project, with Dudley, Horn and Morley back and
Lol Creme; see
http://www.bondegezou.demon.co.uk/wh_now.htm#horn
for links to various relevant websites.
--
Henry
Henry Potts
Rush Wickes <l...@vatech.edu> writes
>I think their first album, the only one recorded with or produced by
>Trevor Horn, called _(Who's Afraid Of) The Art of Noise?_, was great.
[...]
>On a Yes related note, you can hear some samples in one of the tracks,
>I think _Close to the Edit_ that were used in the symphonic blasts on
>_Owner of a Lonely Heart_, which was made at about the same time as
>the AoN album.
From the Chris Squire discography at the NftE website:
ART OF NOISE (w/Trevor Horn, Alan White)
Various CLOSE TO THE EDIT, BEATBOX, A TIME TO HEAR (WHO'S
LISTENING), MOMENTS IN LOVE, LOVE BEAT - (1983 through 1985) [
[various versions contain Chris' voice and Alan's drums sampled
- some taken from an unreleased Yes song titled "Red Light,
Green Light" and other "Yes" samples]
--
Henry
Rush3671
One correction to what I listed previously: The version of "Paranoimia"
featuring Max Headroom did *not* appear on "In Visible Silence." Max was on a
very different 12-inch version that later surfaced on the first "Best of"
album, and the single version featuring Max, which is totally different from
the 12-inch version, appeared on the reissue of the "Best of " album a few
years later. Confused yet? :-)
Adrian M. Rush
"I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time."
--Mark Twain
Henry Potts
Rush3671 <rush...@aol.com> writes [...]
>The project was Trevor Horn's brainchild. AIUI, it came about when
>Trevor was working with programmer J.J. Jeczalik and engineer Gary
Oooops, I forgot Langan in my earlier post. Langan, BTW, worked on the
RockAid Armenia cover of "Smoke on the Water" with Geoff Downes.
>Adrian M. Rush
>--in love with Anne Dudley
Isn't there a Mr. Dudley who does sound engineering or something?
--
Henry
Rush3671
Henry asked:
>>Adrian M. Rush
>>--in love with Anne Dudley
>
>Isn't there a Mr. Dudley who does sound engineering or something?
>--
Yes -- Roger Dudley. Although I don't know the relationship (if any) between
him and Anne. In any event, I'm certain that I'm out of luck. :-)