ART OF NOISE: AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BODY, GOD?

Artist:	Art of Noise
Title:	And What Have You Done With My Body, God?
Format:	Four CD deluxe box set; 36-page book; 56 tracks; 41 unreleased
Label:	ZTT Records (www.ztt.com)
Cat. no.:	ZTT201CD
Release date:	07 August 2006

ZTT Records presents a deluxe box set celebrating its original and most influential signing – the Art of Noise – across 41 unreleased tracks, remixes and demos from the bands groundbreaking 1983/1984 recording sessions. A fourth disc houses the band’s three EPs, all on CD for the first time.

As the 32-page accompanying book says, it’s “the story of how five people came

together from completely different angles to pioneer sampling, cut-and-paste pop, futurist production and create the image of a group that was as unforgettable as it was anonymous, recording classics along the way like Close (to the Edit), Beat Box and Moments in Love, before a final, explosive split.”

This is the first time in 21 years that all five original members of the Art of Noise have been reunited. Between them they deliver a track-by-track commentary that’s hilarious, detailed, fascinating and tragic in equal measures. Since ’85, each has won acclaim in their own right (and is available for interview). They are:

Anne Dudley – Oscar-winning soundtrack composer and recent subject of a three-part Radio 2 series on her work as the UK’s most successful sting arranger for everyone from Pulp to Will Young

Paul Morley – author of Words & Music (both Faber & Faber), regular Newsnight Review critic and recent compiler of North By Northwest: Liverpool & Manchester From Punk To Post-Punk & Beyond 1976-1983

Trevor Horn – the UK’s most successful record producer whose other credits this year include Pet Shop Boys’ Fundamental, following the Princes Trust’s ’04 Produced By Trevor Horn concert at Wembley Arena featuring everyone from Grace Jones to tATu via Seal and Yes

Gary Langan –producer and mixer with a credit list ranging from Public Image Ltd. to Paul McCartney. He has most recently won multi-platinum awards for his 5.1 remix of War Of The Worlds

JJ Jeczalik – this box set marks a rare return to the music business for JJ, who retired in 2000 having taken Art of Noise to greater heights in the late 80s with collaborations including Duane Eddy (Peter Gunn), Tom Jones (Kiss) and Max Headroom (Paranoimia)

ART OF NOISE: A BIOGRAPHY, BY PAUL MORLEY
 

Art Of Noise first appeared to appear in 1983, with a song in their heart, a beat in their soul, and an ignition key in their hand. Formed at a time when the reverberations of punk, post-punk and new wave could still be felt, they were determined to be a different kind of group, a group that set themselves outside the then currents of fashion and style, a group that were the missing link between The Monkees and Talking Heads, Abba and Kraftwerk, Frank Zappa and The Archies.

They took their name, like all the best pop groups from Soft Machine to The Velvet Underground, from a book - a book about Italian futurism. Influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Terry Riley, Miles Davis, Todd Rundgren, Marvin Gaye and Tangerine Dream, they considered themselves futurists in the sense that they were interested in the future, in making the future a better place, in the technology of the future, in turning up in the future, in sounding like they belonged in the future.

At their first group meeting, on February 2nd 1983, they decided that they would never appear in their videos, they would not have a lead singer, they would never officially finish off a track, they would use technology to liberate the imagination, and they would be represented in photographs by spanners, roses and Sigmund Freud (Read into that what you will).

Part studio experiment, part pop group, part time, part play, part considerate, part pioneers, part theory, part science, part art, part of the brand new hyper Zang Tuum Tumb record label, their first record 'Into Battle' (1983) was a blueprint for everything they would get up to in the years ahead. A chopped, sliced and blended mix of dance, trance, new fangled samples, pith and improvisation, it was twenty odd minutes of musical puzzles, collaged collisions and rhythmical novelty. Critics and reviewers, faced with the faint facelessness of the group, the banging sorcery and ringing sourcelessness of the sound, hazarded guesses that the group were black Chicago House builders, or underground sonic surrealists from Berlin, or the missing link between Boney M and The Residents. In many ways, they may have been right.

'Into Battle' was seriously and playfully transformed into their first album, 'Who's Afraid Of The Art Of Noise' (1984). The album contained three songs that defined the early Art Of Noise sound - the antic fractured humour of 'Close (To The Edit)', the prototypical big beat of 'Beat Box' and the meditative might of 'Moments In Love'. Such songs ensured that Art Of Noise would head into the future: as direct and indirect influences on noisy artists from Mantronix to Moby, as a suggestion to Underworld, Daft Punk and The Prodigy how they might play at being absent and present pop stars, and of course as the musical choice Madonna made when she got married (Madonna walked down the aisle to the sound of 'Moments In Love'): The Prodigy sampled 'Close (To The Edit)' to help inspire their 'Firestarter').

On March 12th 1984, Art Of Noise had a meeting, and some members decided to see what it would be like if they became a more visible pop group… The group signed to China Records, teamed up with Duane Eddy for a surfsonic version of 'Peter Gunn', and connected at the hip with Tom Jones for a hitsonic version of Prince's 'Kiss'. Their album 'In No Sense Nonsense' was greeted as an ambient classic.

WHO’S SAMPLED THE ART OF NOISE?

Moloko’s Mark Brydon: “Dance music owes a massive debt to them. In the mid-eighties, the Art of Noise were the first band to write songs with just sounds and samples.”

Pharrel (check the Art of Noise loop in Cee-Lo’s Beat Box)….

Carl Cox: “They were always the innovators for me – you can’t touch stuff like Beat Box – and in the early days of house they were sampled by everyone from Frankie Bones to Frankie Foncett.”

Leftfield… Prodigy (in Firestarter)… Janet Jackson… FatBoy Slim…

Ying Yang Twins (in Ghetto Classics on their massive U.S.A. (United State Of Atlanta) album)…

Graham Massey (808 State): “the Art of Noise put creative music on the dancefloor at a time when everyone else was making disc records. They made brilliant arty music that got played in hip-hop clubs…”

Roni Size… Rammstein… Way Out West… The Orb…

Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire/Sweet Exorcist) – “Art of Noise lead the way with sampling very early on in the game and they made dance music with a sense of humour.”

Front Line Assembly… PFM - “weird original music with a definite style. Hats off!”!…

DJ Food – Paul Morley and Beat Box figure in his Raiding The 20^th Century – the DJ mix that brought the internet to a standstill!…

Felix Da Housecat (AoN pops up in his 2003 Cyberwhore 12”)…

Doc Scott – “Art of Noise… classic electronic music that’s come full circle”…

Money Mark (on his Strippa Chick release featuring Roc Fa Real)…

Aquasky – “Art of Noise brings back memories of my school years… writing graffiti, getting into trouble, popping to electro”

ART OF NOISE: WHAT’S IN THE BOX SET?

(excerpt from the sleeve notes)

1983 to ’85, when these early sessions took place, was an intense period. The finished records have become almost ubiquitous - and are regularly re-sampled and referenced by artists as diverse as Janet Jackson and The Prodigy. But the demos, alternative mixes and studio experiments, the very genesis of the Art of Noise, have never been heard since. Did they even exist? It was thought not, after all Trevor Horn has a reputation of not saving anything if a recording session doesn’t work out - if you change course, erase the tapes and move on. Don’t look back.

But ZTT went on a search. Into the vaults of London’s recordings studios - Sarm West, Angel Studios, Utopia, Sarm East and Mayfair, all of which hosted these early sessions. ZTT was on a mission, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style… and struck gold. The complete Art of Noise sessions, 1983-1986, as presented here, for the first time, never before heard or released.

Disc One traces The Very Start of Noise. The early test-tracks, tinkerings and demos from an era when the team used the unique sounds they were creating for the likes of Malcolm McLaren (on Duck Rock and Buffalo Girls) and Yes (Owner of a Lonely Heart and 90125) to their own ends. A mad cross between hip-hop crews and prog production, all fed into the cutting-edge, but crunchy, early Fairlight sampler.

On Disc Two – Found Sound and Field Trips - they’re at their most playful, recording and sampling everything form tennis matches to actors and actresses, footsteps, old vinyl, engines and animals. The spirit of adventure continues as Beat Box and Close (to the Edit) go head-to-head for a long-overdue throwdown. Two rounds each, take your ringside seat.

By Disc Three – Who’s Afraid of… Goodbye? - it’s all gelling into finished recordings. But then, the big split. The Ambassadors Reel (tracks created for Art of Noise to headline ZTT’s 1985 showcase) get their first release here, because the concerts didn’t quite go as originally planned. Anne, Gary and JJ walked out, just as rehearsals were about to begin. Cue: Oobly, and Goodbye Art of Noise. As three fifths of the original Art of Noise went off to record with Duane Eddy and Tom Jones, the course of the band, ZTT and avant-garde pop took another unlikely twist.

Disc Four - Extended Play – rounds out the set, presenting the band’s three EPs for the first time on CD, the music of which has been unavailable for over 20 years…