The music from the new compilation album is playing as I sit on the
floor of my office surrounded by the hundreds of worldwide releases on
multiple formats in my Art of Noise collection whilst writing this
review. Like other serious collectors, I have always known that
something else was missing and this compilation, the latest addition to
the group's discography, rubs salt into the wound by giving the
collector a taste of what else lies hidden away in the vaults. Unlike
the previous archive release, And What Have You Done With My Body,
God?, this new selection is not just aimed at the collector. It also
acts as part greatest hits and part introduction to the most influential
group of the past 30 years.
This is the first compilation since
the long deleted original The Best Of The Art Of Noise to feature
tracks from both the ZTT and China Records back catalogues. Unlike that
lost album, this new retrospective includes material from the 1980s,
1990s and 2000s. ZTT's curator and Art of Noise aficionado Ian Peel has
not only complied this labour of love, but has also created a work of
art by selecting each individual track with care. Throughout this
thirty nine track compilation only four tracks appear on both
compilations, the 7" versions of Kiss (featuring Tom Jones), Peter
Gunn (featuring Duane Eddy), Moments In Love and Beat Box (Diversion Ten), the latter two appearing only on the LP/cassette versions of the
1988 collection. By not duplicating all the same versions of singles
from The Best Of..., the listener gets an opportunity to hear the
original 7" mixes of Close (To The Edit) (a.k.a. Beat Box (Diversion
Seven)), Legs, Dragnet and the 12" remix, Paranoimia (The
Paranoid Mix) (with Max Headroom) which all blend in perfectly with the
rest of the carefully selected tracks on this album.
The thought
of `best of' albums containing b-sides and album tracks had always came
across to me as just filling, however that is certainly not the case
here! As I mentioned earlier, this album is only part greatest hits. The
music of the Art of Noise has never been able to be defined by any
genre, as it is a genre within itself and the remaining tracks confirm
that statement. Love Beat is a perfect example of this, a type of slow
jazz that originated from Moments In Love before it became a stand
alone track that went on to appear as the soundtrack to various TV
commercials.
Their music was never a stranger to television as
one of the most iconic theme tunes ever produced hit the airwaves in the
shape of the (Theme From) The Krypton Factor. This high energy track,
a fan favourite for more than two decades is available here for the
very first time in its original form, before it was developed into another, Crusoe that appeared on the In No Sense? Nonsense! album, from
which the quirky and bizarre Ode To Don Jose is taken. Acton Art is
an edited down reprise of that album that sends the listener on an audio
rollercoaster ride with a structure that defies conventional musical
structure. In contrast to that, more traditional methods are used in the
form of three orchestrated tracks Promenade One; Promenade Two and Finale from the Below The Waste album, throwing a spanner into the
works of any preconceived notion of what Art of Noise is, or should be.
Not
just one spanner was thrown for The Seduction Of Claude Debussytracks, but a whole set of spanners with the odd socket set thrown in
too as demonstrated in the tracks Metaforce (featuring Rakim) and The
Holy Egoism Of Genius. This time fusing together classical, operatic,
house, drum & bass, narrative and even a rap on Metaforce, once
again defying any genre categorisation. And that is just the first CD
subtitled The A Side: singles, hits, soundtracks and collaborationsthat also includes the single that never was Something Is Missing (aka Dreaming: Colour Green) and
the improvised live recording A Is For Beginning.
Following on
from the success of the aforementioned And What Have You Done With My
Body, God? box set, and with the same care taken as on CD 1, the
listener is transported into another dimension with CD 2 The AA Side:
unreleased experiments, before and after science. An alter ego to the
first disc, this 66 minute chronology of completely previously
unreleased material is a must have for any Art of Noise fan and it isn't
too hard on the first time listener.
The first part is
essentially recordings taken from the experiments from the original
line-up: Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, JJ Jeczalik, Gary Langan and Paul
Morley. Beep Beep an alternative version of Who's Afraid Of The Art
Of Noise makes one ask the question `Why weren't some of these tracks
put out as singles?' A Time For Fear (JJ's 12" Remix) was planned as
the follow up to Moments In Love, of which two more versions appear, (Anne To Tears Mix) and (The Monitor
Mix) (with Lucky Gordon). All of those tracks were recorded before
Anne, JJ & Gary left ZTT to achieve greater success. The fruits of
Trevor & Paul's labour as a spin-off group in 1986 can be heard with
the two versions of This Is Your Life as Art & ACT that were only
rumoured to exist. I'm A Stranger Here Myself and Cassandra were tracks recorded by Anne & JJ that were intended for use in
an American feature film. The remainder of the disc sheds light onto
the creation and development of the concept album The Seduction Of
Claude Debussy with Lol Creme joining the Dudley/Horn/Morley line-up.
The unreleased versions from this period, could have easily been
released on the finished album. Although no versions from the
pre-release CD appear here, it still makes for very interesting
listening and shows how creative the group were. The quality of most
of the unreleased tracks on this disc put the final finished products
of many artists to shame. Spread throughout the disc are Interlude...
tracks featuring spoken words by Trevor Horn and John Hurt. Dainty features Camilla Pilkington's recording sessions for the track Who's
Afraid Of The Art Of Noise while Beat Box (Diversion 3.4,
Extracted) is from an actual jamming session.
The packaging for Influence is first class including an eight-panel digipak to house the
two CDs complete with a luxurious booklet that accompanies the set
written by Ian Peel that also contains previously unpublished
photographs of the group with contributions from Anne Dudley and Paul
Morley. By ignoring and erasing from existence all of those so called
`remixed interpretations' from the three cash-in remix albums (well at
least on this album) becomes a pure joy to listen to, a work of art. The only downside is that there too much material from The Seduction Of Claude Debussy and it pretty much ignores Below The Waste.
