Hello, Aetix is once again featuring an old favorite of mine, underrated as so many really great artists are, John Foxx ( Dennis Leigh). an English singer, artist, photographer and teacher. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox and left to embark on a solo career in 1979. Primarily associated with electronic synthesizer music, he has also pursued a parallel career in graphic design and education currently as senior lecturer at The London College of Music and Media TVU in London, working with art, media and music students across a range of courses.
December will be something of a John Foxx month here, splitting into his Aetix work and his Sundaze ambient work. Last week we had a collection of bonus albums too his main eighties releases. Today the prime albums.
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After about five years "living like a ghost in London", Foxx began to find inspiration in the underground House and Acid music scenes in Detroit and London. With Nation 12 in the early 1990s, Foxx released two 12-inch singles, "Remember" and "Electrofear". The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon, best known for his Bomb the Bass project. The group also wrote the music for the Bitmap Brothers computer games Speedball 2 (1990) and Gods (1991). He also worked with pioneers in this field such as LFO and made the music video for their eponymous debut single. Around this time, Foxx also taught on the Graphic Arts & Design degree course at Leeds Metropolitan University.
On 24 March 1997, John Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, Shifting City and Cathedral Oceans on Metamatic Records.Shifting City was a collaboration with Manchester's Louis Gordon, an updated stylistic return to Foxx's Metamatic synth pop sound which also displayed the influence of 1990s underground dance music and the 'triphop' style, along with the psychedelic Beatles-esque pop. On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1982 at The Astoria, London. A limited edition CD (1,000 numbered copies only) entitled Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour was available for purchase by ticket holders.
Cathedral Oceans was a solo John Foxx record, an ambient return to his Catholic youth and his love of the cathedrals of England and Europe. Its roots included traditional evensong, Gregorian Chant, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and German band Cluster. From his own music Foxx drew on such pieces as "My Sex" from the first self-titled Ultravox! record, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!, "Just For a Moment" from Systems Of Romance, and the title track from The Garden. Cathedral Oceans began as a project during the sessions for "The Garden" and has been a work in progress for 20 years before this release, described by Foxx himself as one of the proudest achievements of his career. An accompanying DVD and book of images was made commercially available for the first time during an installation in Hoxton Square, London, in January 2003.
Foxx and Gordon continued to work together, performing live on the Subterranean Omnnidelic Exotour in 1997 and 1998 and releasing a second album The Pleasures of Electricity, in September 2001. Two years later they toured again, to promote the album Crash and Burn, released in September 2003 on Foxx's own Metamatic Records. This continued the Ballardian themes of urban landscape and automobiles present in Metamatic. 2003 also saw the release of the second volume of Cathedral Oceans as well as another ambient record, the double CD Translucence and Drift Music with Harold Budd. In 2004, from September through October, a collection of Cathedral Oceans images was exhibited at BCB Art, Hudson, New York, and in the following year Cathedral Oceans III was released.
In April 2005 Foxx guested on Finnish DJ Jori Hulkkonen's album Dualizm, where he provided vocals for "Dislocated" which Hulkkonen had written especially for him. A month later, Foxx appeared on stage at the Brighton Pavilion with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson as part of a concert to celebrate the work of the retiring pianist, which led to the announcement in October that year that Foxx would be involved in collaborations with Jah Wobble, Robin Guthrie, Steve Jansen and Nelson. The following month an album's worth of salvaged Nation 12 material was finally issued under the title Electrofear.
In June 2006, Foxx released an instrumental solo album called Tiny Colour Movies consisting of fifteen instrumental tracks inspired by short art films he saw at a private screening. His official website described these as having the "filmic, atmospheric approach" of the Metamatic-era instrumental B-sides. On 18 November 2006, Foxx gave a performance of the work at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton, where Tiny Colour Movies was premiered as part of the city's Film Festival. Edited versions of the movies were shown on a big screen for the first time with Foxx playing a mix of live and recorded accompaniment from the album.
Three collaborative albums with Louis Gordon were released in late 2006: Live From a Room (As Big as a City), a 'live' studio album from the 2003 tour with an interview CD entitled "The Hidden Man" in October; the studio album From Trash in November; and a further album from the same sessions a few weeks later during the accompanying mini-tour. This two-CD package, entitled Sideways, included ten original tracks plus two extended versions of songs on From Trash. The second disc contained an extensive interview with Foxx describing the making of From Trash which was available only at concerts on the 2006 tour. The album saw a more commercial UK-wide release in April 2007.
A second surround sound DVD of Cathedral Oceans was released in March 2007. This contained his artwork made into a film intended as a "slowly moving, hallucinogenic, digital stained glass window, intended to be projected as big as possible onto architecture and in public places." The work was premiered in November 2006 at the Leeds International Film Festival. In July 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his Cathedral Oceans artwork as large format digital prints at Fulham Palace as part of the RetroFuture exhibition hosted by ArtHertz. On the opening night, Foxx performed a piano piece accompanying a reading from his unpublished novel The Quiet Man in front of an audience for the first time.
On 29 September 2007, a showcase of Foxx's work was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London where he performed another version of Tiny Colour Movies . This was followed by the first-ever live performance of the entire Metamatic album, during which Foxx and Louis Gordon were accompanied on stage by Steve D'Agostino. Later in the evening, the DVD of Cathedral Oceans was shown in one of the ICA cinema studios. In October, Foxx and Gordon toured the UK with Metamatic, culminating in a show at Cargo in London. A live album titled A New Kind of Man, culled from the Metamatic performances in 2007, was released on 28 April 2008. A personal compilation of his work, My Lost Citywas released in 2009.
In December 2009 the Metamatic website announced the new musical project John Foxx And The Maths, the name given to the work written and produced by John Foxx and Benge. Latter had already broke the news on his own blog in November calling The Maths "a new album project" An initial single Destination / September Town was released in December 2009 as download.
The duo continued to work in Benge's studio in Shoreditch throughout 2010 , a new album entitled Interplay was announced in January 2011 and released on March 21st. The album gained much critical acclaim with The Quietus calling it "one of the finest electronic records you'll hear in 2011." The Quietus also launched a remix competition to coincide with the release of the album. A live event featuring John Foxx And The Maths, was held in April 2011. Back to the Phuture was billed as a special electronic music event – featuring live sets from John Foxx, Gary Numan, Mirrors and Motor – plus a DJ set by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller
A nine date UK tour by John Foxx And The Maths was announced in July 2011, plus live performances in Poland and Belgium. A second album The Shape of Things was also announced prior to the tour and was initially only available for purchase at tour venues.
Foxx has more recently taken a senior lecturer position at The London College of Music and Media TVU in London, working with art, media and music students across a range of courses. These include a masters degree in Computer Arts, as well as undergraduate courses such as Digital Arts and Audio Technology. In December 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his photographic works in an exhibition called Cinemascope at the Coningsby Gallery in West London. The images were part of three collections, "Grey Suit Music", "Tiny Colour Movies" and "Cathedral Oceans".
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On Metamatic, Foxx cultivates a curious air of disinterest that never seems truly bored, but is much more extreme than even his unarguably distant vocal style for Ultravox!. It holds up as one of the peaks of the early-'80s fascination with emotionless, Kraftwerk-inspired synth pop.
John Foxx - Metamatic (flac 254mb)
101 Plaza 3:56
102 He's A Liquid 3:03
103 Underpass 3:57
104 Metal Beat 3:02
105 No-one Driving 3:48
106 A New Kind Of Man 3:42
107 Blurred Girl 4:19
108 030 3:18
109 Tidal Wave 4:17
110 Touch And Go 5:40
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John Foxx's second solo effort is a lovely slice of underrated, early-'80s pop/rock with a decidedly electronic touch. Starting with an absolutely killer track, the steady Krautrock-rhythm pulse and shimmer of "Europe After the Rain," Foxx's elegantly passionate vocal is the icing on the cake .The Garden is polished, epic post-punk of the finest variety. At its hardest rocking, it easily calls up the contemporary work of bands like U2, Simple Minds, and Echo & the Bunnymen in its driving, charging sweep. Foxx himself plays a fine guitar, but Robin Simon gets the lead guitar credits throughout the album and turns out to be an under-appreciated figure of that era, relying on quick, sudden bursts of chords and feedback to carry his work. "Systems of Romance," borrowing its title from the last Foxx-led Ultravox album and possessing a thrilling instrumental coda, and the dramatic charge of "Walk Away" make for two of the strongest standouts, as does the title track, concluding the album with a striking combination of mysterious, haunting moods and keyboard parts.
John Foxx - The Garden ( flac 274mb)
101 Europe After The Rain 4:01
102 Systems Of Romance 4:04
103 When I Was A Man And You Were A Woman 3:39
104 Dancing Like A Gun 4:12
105 Pater Noster 2:35
106 Night Suit 4:26
107 You Were There 3:53
108 Fusion/Fission 3:51
109 Walk Away 3:55
110 The Garden 7:11
December will be something of a John Foxx month here, splitting into his Aetix work and his Sundaze ambient work. Last week we had a collection of bonus albums too his main eighties releases. Today the prime albums.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
After about five years "living like a ghost in London", Foxx began to find inspiration in the underground House and Acid music scenes in Detroit and London. With Nation 12 in the early 1990s, Foxx released two 12-inch singles, "Remember" and "Electrofear". The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon, best known for his Bomb the Bass project. The group also wrote the music for the Bitmap Brothers computer games Speedball 2 (1990) and Gods (1991). He also worked with pioneers in this field such as LFO and made the music video for their eponymous debut single. Around this time, Foxx also taught on the Graphic Arts & Design degree course at Leeds Metropolitan University.
On 24 March 1997, John Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, Shifting City and Cathedral Oceans on Metamatic Records.Shifting City was a collaboration with Manchester's Louis Gordon, an updated stylistic return to Foxx's Metamatic synth pop sound which also displayed the influence of 1990s underground dance music and the 'triphop' style, along with the psychedelic Beatles-esque pop. On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1982 at The Astoria, London. A limited edition CD (1,000 numbered copies only) entitled Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour was available for purchase by ticket holders.
Cathedral Oceans was a solo John Foxx record, an ambient return to his Catholic youth and his love of the cathedrals of England and Europe. Its roots included traditional evensong, Gregorian Chant, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and German band Cluster. From his own music Foxx drew on such pieces as "My Sex" from the first self-titled Ultravox! record, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!, "Just For a Moment" from Systems Of Romance, and the title track from The Garden. Cathedral Oceans began as a project during the sessions for "The Garden" and has been a work in progress for 20 years before this release, described by Foxx himself as one of the proudest achievements of his career. An accompanying DVD and book of images was made commercially available for the first time during an installation in Hoxton Square, London, in January 2003.
Foxx and Gordon continued to work together, performing live on the Subterranean Omnnidelic Exotour in 1997 and 1998 and releasing a second album The Pleasures of Electricity, in September 2001. Two years later they toured again, to promote the album Crash and Burn, released in September 2003 on Foxx's own Metamatic Records. This continued the Ballardian themes of urban landscape and automobiles present in Metamatic. 2003 also saw the release of the second volume of Cathedral Oceans as well as another ambient record, the double CD Translucence and Drift Music with Harold Budd. In 2004, from September through October, a collection of Cathedral Oceans images was exhibited at BCB Art, Hudson, New York, and in the following year Cathedral Oceans III was released.
In April 2005 Foxx guested on Finnish DJ Jori Hulkkonen's album Dualizm, where he provided vocals for "Dislocated" which Hulkkonen had written especially for him. A month later, Foxx appeared on stage at the Brighton Pavilion with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson as part of a concert to celebrate the work of the retiring pianist, which led to the announcement in October that year that Foxx would be involved in collaborations with Jah Wobble, Robin Guthrie, Steve Jansen and Nelson. The following month an album's worth of salvaged Nation 12 material was finally issued under the title Electrofear.
In June 2006, Foxx released an instrumental solo album called Tiny Colour Movies consisting of fifteen instrumental tracks inspired by short art films he saw at a private screening. His official website described these as having the "filmic, atmospheric approach" of the Metamatic-era instrumental B-sides. On 18 November 2006, Foxx gave a performance of the work at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton, where Tiny Colour Movies was premiered as part of the city's Film Festival. Edited versions of the movies were shown on a big screen for the first time with Foxx playing a mix of live and recorded accompaniment from the album.
Three collaborative albums with Louis Gordon were released in late 2006: Live From a Room (As Big as a City), a 'live' studio album from the 2003 tour with an interview CD entitled "The Hidden Man" in October; the studio album From Trash in November; and a further album from the same sessions a few weeks later during the accompanying mini-tour. This two-CD package, entitled Sideways, included ten original tracks plus two extended versions of songs on From Trash. The second disc contained an extensive interview with Foxx describing the making of From Trash which was available only at concerts on the 2006 tour. The album saw a more commercial UK-wide release in April 2007.
A second surround sound DVD of Cathedral Oceans was released in March 2007. This contained his artwork made into a film intended as a "slowly moving, hallucinogenic, digital stained glass window, intended to be projected as big as possible onto architecture and in public places." The work was premiered in November 2006 at the Leeds International Film Festival. In July 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his Cathedral Oceans artwork as large format digital prints at Fulham Palace as part of the RetroFuture exhibition hosted by ArtHertz. On the opening night, Foxx performed a piano piece accompanying a reading from his unpublished novel The Quiet Man in front of an audience for the first time.
On 29 September 2007, a showcase of Foxx's work was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London where he performed another version of Tiny Colour Movies . This was followed by the first-ever live performance of the entire Metamatic album, during which Foxx and Louis Gordon were accompanied on stage by Steve D'Agostino. Later in the evening, the DVD of Cathedral Oceans was shown in one of the ICA cinema studios. In October, Foxx and Gordon toured the UK with Metamatic, culminating in a show at Cargo in London. A live album titled A New Kind of Man, culled from the Metamatic performances in 2007, was released on 28 April 2008. A personal compilation of his work, My Lost Citywas released in 2009.
In December 2009 the Metamatic website announced the new musical project John Foxx And The Maths, the name given to the work written and produced by John Foxx and Benge. Latter had already broke the news on his own blog in November calling The Maths "a new album project" An initial single Destination / September Town was released in December 2009 as download.
The duo continued to work in Benge's studio in Shoreditch throughout 2010 , a new album entitled Interplay was announced in January 2011 and released on March 21st. The album gained much critical acclaim with The Quietus calling it "one of the finest electronic records you'll hear in 2011." The Quietus also launched a remix competition to coincide with the release of the album. A live event featuring John Foxx And The Maths, was held in April 2011. Back to the Phuture was billed as a special electronic music event – featuring live sets from John Foxx, Gary Numan, Mirrors and Motor – plus a DJ set by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller
A nine date UK tour by John Foxx And The Maths was announced in July 2011, plus live performances in Poland and Belgium. A second album The Shape of Things was also announced prior to the tour and was initially only available for purchase at tour venues.
Foxx has more recently taken a senior lecturer position at The London College of Music and Media TVU in London, working with art, media and music students across a range of courses. These include a masters degree in Computer Arts, as well as undergraduate courses such as Digital Arts and Audio Technology. In December 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his photographic works in an exhibition called Cinemascope at the Coningsby Gallery in West London. The images were part of three collections, "Grey Suit Music", "Tiny Colour Movies" and "Cathedral Oceans".
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
On Metamatic, Foxx cultivates a curious air of disinterest that never seems truly bored, but is much more extreme than even his unarguably distant vocal style for Ultravox!. It holds up as one of the peaks of the early-'80s fascination with emotionless, Kraftwerk-inspired synth pop.
John Foxx - Metamatic (flac 254mb)
101 Plaza 3:56
102 He's A Liquid 3:03
103 Underpass 3:57
104 Metal Beat 3:02
105 No-one Driving 3:48
106 A New Kind Of Man 3:42
107 Blurred Girl 4:19
108 030 3:18
109 Tidal Wave 4:17
110 Touch And Go 5:40
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
John Foxx's second solo effort is a lovely slice of underrated, early-'80s pop/rock with a decidedly electronic touch. Starting with an absolutely killer track, the steady Krautrock-rhythm pulse and shimmer of "Europe After the Rain," Foxx's elegantly passionate vocal is the icing on the cake .The Garden is polished, epic post-punk of the finest variety. At its hardest rocking, it easily calls up the contemporary work of bands like U2, Simple Minds, and Echo & the Bunnymen in its driving, charging sweep. Foxx himself plays a fine guitar, but Robin Simon gets the lead guitar credits throughout the album and turns out to be an under-appreciated figure of that era, relying on quick, sudden bursts of chords and feedback to carry his work. "Systems of Romance," borrowing its title from the last Foxx-led Ultravox album and possessing a thrilling instrumental coda, and the dramatic charge of "Walk Away" make for two of the strongest standouts, as does the title track, concluding the album with a striking combination of mysterious, haunting moods and keyboard parts.
John Foxx - The Garden ( flac 274mb)
101 Europe After The Rain 4:01
102 Systems Of Romance 4:04
103 When I Was A Man And You Were A Woman 3:39
104 Dancing Like A Gun 4:12
105 Pater Noster 2:35
106 Night Suit 4:26
107 You Were There 3:53
108 Fusion/Fission 3:51
109 Walk Away 3:55
110 The Garden 7:11
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The third solo album by John Foxx focused on fusing the experimental fringe of synth pop with a melodic preoccupation that almost put him into crossover territory. Capped by the superb single "Endlessly," The Golden Section again distanced Foxx from the glut of synth bands on the market.
John Foxx - The Golden Section (flac 304mb)
101 My Wild Love 3:44
102 Someone 3:31
103 Your Dress 4:26
104 Running Across Thin Ice With Tigers 5:37
105 Sitting At The Edge Of The World 4:23
106 Endlessly 4:18
107 Ghosts On Water 3:12
108 Like A Miracle 5:10
109 The Hidden Man 5:44
110 Twilight’s Last Gleaming 4:24
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9 comments:
Hi, Rho, unfortunately all of these tasty Foxx flacs are no more. Would you consider re-upping them? I'd appreciate it if you did. Massive thanks in advance and all the best to you.
Well all flacs have been re-upped now N'Joy
Rho? Roland here. I've just managed to DL The Garden and The Golden Section, and I'm thrilled to have found them both alive and kicking! I thank you for both, and I ask you to please consider re-upping the flacs for Metamatic. FF links would be greaty appreciated, but I'll get them wherever you decide to place them. I thank you in advance.
Hello Roland just re-upped both metamatics bonus is a weak earlier. N'Joy
I can't thank you enough for the re-up. I've just listened to 'Plaza' and it really doesn't sound too compressed at all. A pleasant surprise indeed. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'both metamatics bonus is a weak earlier'. Are you referring to disc 2 of the 2CD deluxe edition? In any case, I'm really happy to have found the first three Foxxes here! Massive thanks again and all the best to you.
Hello Anon , I do all bonus albums were posted a weak earlier, that is aetix 1150
Thanks!!!
From México.
Would you care to upload Foxx's Metamatic, The Garden and Golden Section again in FLAC? Thanks, Bertie
Hi Rho, another re-up suggestion.
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