The Art of Noise

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Back in the 80s my favourite band was the British avant garde group The Art of Noise.

Art Of Noise are not a band. Never were. They are an organisation, a distinctly non-rockist creative, post-modernist collective. Starting out as a mysterious, Trevor Horn led experimental studio outfit, the primary contributors to the adventure were Royal College Of Music graduate, Anne Dudley; producer/arranger J.J. Jeczalik and songwriter, instrumentalist and engineer/producer Gary Langan.

When I first got on the Internet - at a staggering 9.6 kilobits - one of the first things I checked was naturally The Noise. I found a small discussion group where we talked about which records we liked best, etc.
After the internet came with force, and eBay a household name, I occasionaly skim both for further info on my ex-favourite band. That way I’ve come accross a number of special records that I didn’t know of in the 80s.
Now with broadband and YouTube, a whole new world opens. I came across all those videos I had heard of back-when, but never saw (we did have 2 TV channels to chose from at that time, and they showed a half hour of music videos per week. And none of them by The Noise.)

Here is the song that started it all (but what a weird video)

Same song, different video. Your call.

Thanks to a friend of mine (HeNe, wo bist Du?), I heard the name of the band. Immedeately I went to our local record store, that did not have that song in store, but a 12″ version of Moments in Love.

…which you can safely say is of a totally different style. First I was disappointed, but soon realized what a great scope of musical style these people had. A few records later, I was proud to be the towns only Art of Noise fan. I even subscribed to their photocopied Fanmail, which meant having to buy a very expensive international stamp, a specialized enveloped, and shipping all that to England, only to receive a single sided (but A3 format) black and white sheet full of words. Anyone got a copy scanned in?And then came Beatbox, I never found out how many different version of that tune were circulated. During my one year exchange programme in the US, I found yet another 12″ version.

After their break with the label ZZT (which produced many of the great 80’s music, such as Frankie goes to Hollywood), they moved on to China Records, and - I felt - became less daring. One of their first releases was Legs:

And a slightly different song, Legacy

Paranomia - hey I’ve never heard this version before.

Being studio musicians, it was very hard finding anything out about them. I remember buying a “live” record. All the photographs were covered with a label saying “Sticker - do not remove.” Boy, was I torn between peeling of the label and seeing “my guys” and keeping the “art” in tact. They started making songs with other musicians. Being electronic fronteers, they also teamed up with Max Headroom.

Duane Eddy

And one of my favourites from the “new” Art of Noise, Yebo:

Anne Dudley, one of the 3 heads of Art of Noise, wrote many of the tunes. She also wrote music for TV commercials (I remember stumbling upon a Bols record; that was very Art of Noisy indeed). Art of Noise started making music for feature films, such as Dragnet.

They made a re-mix album, trying to jump on the Drum’n'base wave. I never liked it.

From time to time The Noise resurfaces, of late with an album with work by Claude Debussy. Here a cool team-up with Rakim:

A remix of Legs

When I spend 5 years in London in the later 1990s, I also heard - thank you, internet - that they were having a concert. Thus I booked my very first online ticket. I took my trusty BMW R65 motorbike to the venue - at the time I earned some money as a motorbike courier - and thus I came in black leather clothes. Which I usually don’t wear. Much to my surprize, pretty much everyone at the concert wore black leather clothes and looked like they had been teenagers in the 80s. And mostly male. And mostly glass wearing. Well, just like me..Since then, Anne has done a lot of feature film work, even won an Oscar, scored some great tunes.

Here a video with sampled music by The Noise. Remember, this must have been made in the 90s. Digital video was not quite there yet, you worked with an analogue mixer to get those effects.