“The musical equal of Preston Bus Station mating with Angkor Wat in Instances Sq..” Attempt typing that command into ChatGPT, and the outcome may properly resemble John Foxx’s seminal 1980 file, Metamatic. If that’s the case, he would most likely be delighted. In any case, chatting with Traditional Pop for the file’s forty fifth anniversary reissue, that’s how he describes his unique imaginative and prescient. “It was clear from the start,” he tells us, “it needed to be minimal, primitive, unusually romantic, technoid and joyfully brutalist. No mercy.” We expect he succeeded.
Metamatic was a groundbreaking launch, among the many very first true synth-pop information from a British artist. Whether or not such a factor can ever be demarcated, it’s actually among the many unique innovators – the look, the themes, the accompanying visible imagery. It’s man versus machine; a dystopian imaginative and prescient of a technological world, far nearer to actuality than anybody might ever have imagined.
In fact, John Foxx first got here to our consideration as the unique frontman of Ultravox!, an altogether extra abrasive, arty and awkward outfit than the later Midge Ure incarnation that achieved industrial success. Whereas a extra standard path may need awaited Foxx, he had one other calling.
“Even on that very first Ultravox! album, recording My Intercourse in 1977, I realised one thing completely new was occurring,” John explains. “You may make simpler music with simply a few machines – and the studio itself was actually the fundamental instrument.”
An extra epiphany occurred whereas recording Hiroshima Mon Amour, as numerous tantalising technological advances ushered in “irresistible” potentialities for artistic endeavour. “For the very first time, with solely a tape recorder, synth and drum machine, you can make a wholly new form of music. I wanted to bail out of the band with a purpose to realise this new imaginative and prescient correctly.”
Digital Journey
And so started the brand new digital journey. Nevertheless, adopting novel expertise didn’t imply a sterile, sanitised method. “On the time, I deeply disliked the dominant huge studio pop sound. Too clear, polished and useless. Against this, I beloved the crackly sound of early Chicago Blues recordings. It felt like residing natural materials. Then I discovered dub – each blues and dub are unafraid of imperfection within the service of true emotional influence.”
In Foxx’s expertise, skilled studios have been unwieldy beasts, stifled by accepted conventions and never conducive to creativity. “If you lastly acquired the [record] house and listened, you realised you’d been incrementally compromised. As a substitute of your unique daring idea of a brand new 3D natural shape-shifting presence within the universe, you bought a sonic turd.”
The antidote was to undertake a a lot less complicated set-up, which he present in Pathway, a comfy however inspiring house in Islington, North London, which solely had eight-track amenities. Removed from being a limitation, it served to sharpen the main focus. By necessity, each bit must be diminished all the way down to its constituent components. Something that wasn’t very important was jettisoned.
“The problem I set myself was to make use of solely eight tracks of sound for any track. It was pleasing when some songs ended up utilizing solely six tracks,” Foxx explains. “I additionally wished just one or two devices to be enjoying at any given second, so that you get most influence from every sound.”
To assist realise his imaginative and prescient, Foxx enlisted engineer Gareth Jones – quickly to make his personal identify as an in-demand producer. Impressed by the minimalist method of dub information, the pair included that ethos into their very own undertaking. The result’s an austere, uncompromising and at occasions troublesome file, however deliberately so. It’s gritty, unvarnished but in addition unbelievably thrilling.
Myths Of The Close to Future
The music wasn’t conceived completely in isolation. By nature, it got here with its personal set of values, visible cues, literary references and language. Certainly, as Foxx has since acknowledged, such particular sounds necessitated a sure city aesthetic. Like contemporaries, from Gary Numan to The Creatures, Foxx was closely impressed by writers together with J.G. Ballard, identified for futuristic dystopian nightmares.
For all of the futuristic leanings, John explains these ideas have been grounded in a tangible actuality. “They recognised what was really occurring on the planet. Beneath the guise of ‘Science Fiction’ they have been really exploring the unrecognised current, in a manner that wasn’t occurring elsewhere.”
Certainly, thematically, the album feels as recent and prescient as ever. Identical to Black Mirror, it’s not futurist fiction, however an rising actuality. The file takes its identify from the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely’s métamatic idea, wherein mechanised robotic contraptions create artwork – a critique on the automation of concepts. The notion isn’t to date faraway from the uncanny valley musical experiments and deep fakes now commonly generated by machine studying. It’s horrifying how related these themes stay at present. Removed from classic throwback, Metamatic has startling up to date resonance.
“Properly, fairly a couple of of these trendy issues have been rising even then,” Foxx counters. “Additionally, rising up within the north, as factories have been closing and a whole lifestyle was falling away, sensitises you to alter and its results.”
Net Of Intrigue
John continues: “By the way, I titled all the things I did ‘Extremely’ and ‘Meta’ as a result of I preferred the continuity of utilizing outdated Latin that gave the impression of some new electrical product, which is what I assumed I used to be. Fascinating how that form of terminology has now been adopted and included into the online, and the online itself really grew to become a worldwide extension of thought, hearsay, info and tosh. Tinguely was proper about self-destructive artwork and efficiency machines. Partly, that’s what the online is also – and what many rock’n’rollers really grew to become.”
However the grit and realness of the metropolis is at all times current. “I additionally felt the brand new songs needed to manifest a couple of common issues in oblique methods – these should be implicit, however stay unexplained. Within the blues, these could be dealing with hardship with braveness and sustaining the flare of human spirit and humour in opposition to the percentages. In Metamatic, that equal could be tacitly acknowledging the form of psychic alterations we’ve to face, so we will survive in a contemporary metropolis – plus some try to keep up dignity, hope and romance in an city world.”
Foxx was certainly one of a number of pathfinders venturing into new territory. The similarities within the cowl idea with Gary Numan’s The Pleasure Precept (launched inside 4 months of one another) are startling. Each sleeves function a sharp-suited protagonist on a stark chrome background, transfixed by a glowing geometric form beckoning them ahead to summon its energy. However whereas Numan seems to be considering it with some suspicion, Foxx is reaching out to know it, arm aloft.
Each have been recorded in 1979, but Numan pipped Foxx to the publish, getting his launch out the opposite aspect of 1980. Historical past has chosen Numan because the innovator, regardless that he has readily acknowledged Foxx’s affect.
Cult Standing
Numan loved industrial success, whereas Foxx’s personal traditional retains a cult standing. “Everybody making digital music at the moment owes [Numan] an amazing debt for opening the door,” he says. “That led to a sea change in British music and ultimately went proper all over the world. Gary made distinctive information. I additionally preferred him, he was sincere and easy and had an actual imaginative and prescient. He’s a star and completely at house in all of it, which sadly I’m not.”
In some methods, Metamatic was too forward of its time. The truth that it nonetheless holds up and sounds so recent is testomony to its enduring affect on a lot that adopted. Current years have witnessed an enormous revival in its austere electro stylings, with genres like synthwave, minimalist techno, and even US Southern-fried hip-hop and lure taking clear cues. The similarities will not be misplaced on Foxx. “I do hear it, and it does really feel good,” he says. “It’s a type of vindication in case your music manages emigrate into succeeding generations.”
Reissues within the years since its preliminary launch have unearthed a plethora of further B-sides and offcuts. Nevertheless, this yr’s forty fifth anniversary incarnation, reverts to the traditional tracklisting. Once more, it’s Foxx’s penchant for preserving issues easy, trimming it again to its core essence.
“We people are nice distillers, aren’t we?” he muses. “We like to get issues all the way down to their essence – a drop of fragrance from a thousand flowers, whisky from widespread grain, metal from melted rocks, and all that. Identical with music – once you get to one thing irreducible. It means you’ve discovered its most significant parts, and all the things pointless has been chucked over the shoulder. Robust work, however solely via all that may you lastly get to the true spirit – and that’s what I used to be at all times after.”
The Songs
Plaza
The dystopian onslaught begins with a minimalist beat – processed and filtered like static emitting from some otherworldly transmission, earlier than the darkish, foreboding synths come crawling in. Foxx delivers stark, summary imagery by way of his staccato speak-singing vocals, probably the most fast being the splendidly evocative however inherently darkish lyric: “I recognise your face from some shattered windscreen.”
The general soundscape is experimental in nature, stuffed with dissonant bleeps and swishes that bubble up out of the ether. Foxx introduces a recurring motif that reappears all through the album; that of city areas and metropolitan infrastructure – on this case, the plaza – offering that unsettling dichotomy of each huge open house and claustrophobia. As with many of the preparations on the file, it’s sparse and austere. There’s no actual track construction, however primarily propelled alongside on a singular groove, a subtly funky bass and the one-line chanted slogan.
He’s A Liquid
Supposedly influenced by visuals from a Japanese horror movie wherein an unlucky character is liquified, that is certainly one of a few tracks on Metamatic that Foxx first carried out in a unique guise with Ultravox. This iteration of the track incorporates a splendidly lackadaisical vocal supply – although syncopated and rap-like – atop a gradual, shuffly beat, and eerie haunted home synths. It might nearly go for Southern-fried hip-hop or proto-trap (ask your kids), if not for the oh-so-English accent that locations it firmly in post-Warfare Britain (“Blackpool Neon Tango” is seemingly how Foxx would describe his personal style).
Certainly, with its laidback swagger and trappy beats, wouldn’t it’s great to think about a visitor verse from Snoop Dogg? Following Foxx’s modus operandi for this file, the association is notably sparse and spindly, as if it might collapse into nothingness at any second. However that impossible to resist synth hook ensures it snags within the mind. Why on earth this wasn’t chosen as a single is among the nice outrages of our occasions.
Underpass
If dystopian classics like A Clockwork Orange, 1984 or Crash have been to be distilled right into a four-minute pop track, that is what it could sound like. Underpass was launched as the primary single, and it’s straightforward to see why. It’s one of the instantly accessible tracks on the file, with its catchy opening synth riff. Once more, the refrain is that easy trademark vocal chorus cried out (while caked in reverb) over the primary riff. It options one other trap-style beat, although quicker. The Ballardian imagery involves the fore with the auto theme, equally adopted by Numan and others, and – identical to Numan – his voice is especially monotone and robotic within the verses.
Steel Beat
Conversely, it’s clear why this one wasn’t chosen as a single! However that’s not a nasty factor; it has that splendidly spontaneous and experimental really feel that would solely ever be the product of an album observe or B-side (songs that usually reveal an artist at their most attention-grabbing). It has a slower tempo with a four-to-the-floor beat on the kick drum, with one other minimalist, barely squelchy bassline and chilly synth motif shining excessive. It’s the sparsest observe but, with a slight musique concrete really feel to it in its industrial-sounding vibes. However additionally it is completely eccentric in that very Northern English manner, and truly the primary express signal of caprice. Whereas some tracks really feel fairly heavy and foreboding, Steel Beat is gentle and playful.
No-One Driving
The second single, launched in March 1980. The synth riff is naggingly paying homage to one thing else – maybe Airport by New Wavers, The Motors, if as a substitute carried out by Kraftwerk. Extra so than some other observe on the file, this has a extra standard chord construction to it, fairly than the synth bass groove-led tracks as is typical elsewhere. In the meantime, John is extra melodic in his vocal phrasing, to dramatic impact.
A New Type Of Man
The primary observe of Aspect Two is characterised by its funky and busy bassline – that was apparently performed on an ordinary bass guitar – with characterful runs and slides, layered over with droning synths that pitch bend and glissando from excessive to low, like a wailing siren, or digital scream. The entire concoction has a really anxious feeling to it, laced in nervous power. It’s certainly one of John’s favorite tracks on the file. He says: “I just like the lyric and the synth sounds and was excited by the best way the tip melody repeated completely within the sound-on-sound loop of the House Echo. A superb omen – felt just like the machines have been making the music. This was the second or third track Gareth and I had recorded – by the point we’d acquired to that time, we have been crusing away, the remainder of the album was a delight to make.”
Blurred Woman
Apparently one of many first tracks put collectively within the studio with Jones, which actually helped to set the tone of how the album would sound and really feel. It options extra eerie haunted home results, with a theremin sound straight out of Scooby Doo, whirling above a cool synth riff. Once more, there’s extra melodic singing from Foxx. John sounds very distant in locations, caked in reverb and set again within the combine – the melodic components contrasting with the spoken phrase sections, that are a lot nearer and dryer. One of many longer tracks on the file, the dub affect clearly reveals itself with the low-rumbling bassline and a barely rambling high quality, with its revolving groove that would seemingly go on endlessly. A real spotlight.
030
The quicker tempo provides 030 a discernible New Wave really feel, full with one other skittish beat over flanged synths. Whether or not it’s intentional or not, Foxx channels a Devo vibe, significantly on the machine gun vocals (which vaguely recall Whip It, launched later that yr). In comparison with different cuts on Metamatic, this feels comparatively undeveloped – an concept that doesn’t totally take off like its siblings.
Tidal Wave
This, nevertheless, is extra prefer it, opening with a frantic rhythm and quicker tempo. It follows the mould of the track title repeated over: “Tidal wave, tidal wave, tidal wave goes by my window”. The vocals are extra dronal on this observe, with lengthy, drawn out legato phrases. The soiled noticed synths invoke an industrial really feel; the punkiest observe on the file. Certainly, with a heavier, grungy dance beat excessive, this might properly go for The Prodigy – Liam Howlett might certainly do an epic remix (in a late-90s fairly than early-80s vibe). Certainly, by the ultimate third, it feels just a little prefer it’s ready for that vast jungle beat to kick in, that by no means does. However that’s simply nitpicking. The outro is enhanced with ghostly vocal refrains that recall medieval monastic chants, an incongruous however impressed aspect to distinction in opposition to the track’s futurist city leanings.
Contact And Go
One other observe with a Devo-esque vibe, each in its jittery backing observe and attribute vocal supply. The four-to-the-floor beat has an early techno really feel, whereas the chiming synths within the closing third recall eight-bit video video games from an early 80s arcade. Cool synth thrives abound all through. That is one other observe initially roadtested with Ultravox forward of Foxx’s departure, which is why you may recognise uncanny similarities to Mr X on the band’s 1980 file, Vienna (an equally pioneering traditional).
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