A
purchase is made at 3:55pm, Monday 14th April 1986 by a fourteen
year-old boy who had been frantically looking for a new album released
on that day in his local record shop on his way home from school. There
in front of him, within the new releases was what he had been looking
for. A cover with multiple squares, the yellow, red and blue ones hiding
the image of a man’s embossed face, all running parallel to the oblong
centre image of a hand holding a disc with the letters AoN. This wasn’t
any new release album, it was In Visible Silence by The Art of Noise, complete with a circular lilac sticker that read Contains the hits Peter Gunn and Legs and the catalogue number WOL 2.
How do I know that a fourteen year-old teenager purchased the album at
that specific time and date? – Because that teenager was me and I still
have the receipt inside its cover, a record of the moment that started a
thirty-one year love affair with an album that has never waned.
Upon listening to it for the first time I was surprised how different it sounded from its predecessor Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of Noise
and how perfect it sounded. Every track was structured in a way that
has never dated, giving the album a sense of a non-linear timelessness, a
product of its time, certainly, but never sounding of its time, or any
other. After three decades it defies old age as if it had drank from a fountain of youth.
The
chrome cassette was purchased a week later, then the following month
the Compact Disc. As I opened the case and carefully lifted the disc
from its housing, respecting it by not letting any of my fingerprints
touch its surface (this was my first CD and also the first one released
by the Art of Noise), I placed it into the drawer of my CD player, after
it closed, the play button was pressed, Opus 4 began. The sound
engaged me in away that I never imagined, this was one of the first non
classical albums to take advantage of digital audio technology. Even
now it sounds far better than most of the CDs put out during the 1980s
and 1990s
Other
versions surfaced between 1986 and 1988, each with their own charm, but
never as good as the original version. What would now be called a
deluxe edition surfaced in December 1986 with a free six track bonus
album, Re-Works Of Art Of Noise containing three live tracks and the 12” mix of the group’s then new single Legacy.
A
few years ago work had started on trying to get deluxe reissues of the
Art of Noise’s three China Records albums released as they had been out
of print since 1999. In 2015 In Visible Silence, its two follow-up albums In·No·Sense? Nonsense! and Below The Waste were
reissued alongside the 1990s remix albums as digital downloads. Hope
began to fade of any physical format being issued, let a lone a deluxe
set. Late 2015, something started to happen, the ball had finally
started to roll and In Visible Silence looked like it was to get a deluxe edition version at long last.
Fast
forward to 19th May 2017, disc one of the deluxe edition remastered by
Gary Langan & JJ Jeczalik is taken out of its packaging and placed
into the tray of my trusted 1987 Philips CD-473 Compact Disc player.
After the drawer closed, I pressed play expecting to hear a cleaned up
high quality remaster, not expecting to be sucked inside the sound,
never thinking that this album could be improved upon. After the final
track of the original album had ended, came the first batch of extra
tracks, the 7” versions of Paranoimia and Legs with the b-sides Hoops And Mallets; Something Always Happens (12” version); Why Me?; A Nation Rejects along with the previously unreleased Backbeat (Reprise).
More often than not when additional tracks are added to an original
album they can dilute it. Thankfully that is not the case here as they
all feel like they were always included on the original In Visible Silence from 1986.
The
first part of the second disc, is a treasure trove of previously
unheard demos that went onto form the final album along with The First Leg and Second Legs, which as you may guess are earlier versions of Legs. Fans of Max Headroom will get an additional treat as the theme from The Max Headroom Show titled Happy Harry’s High Club
is included and released for the very first time. As I have stated in a
previous review, the Art of Noise’s demos are superior to many final
mixes by other artists, that is certainly true here. The last part of
the disc contains six 12” mixes: Legs (Inside Leg Mix), Legs (Last Leg Mix), Peter Gunn (Extended Version), Peter Gunn (The Twang Mix), Paranoimia (Extended Version) and Paranoimia (The Paranoid Mix). Although the last track had been issued on CD before as part of the 2010 compilation Influence, it is the first time that it has been remastered from the original master tapes as it was believed to have been lost
and a new one had to be made from a vinyl copy. If one listens closely you will some
hidden gems over the double disc set, nothing has been added as a filler
or for the sake of it. Not appearing in this set is Legacy but having six versions of Legs included in this set may have been overkill.
John
Pasche’s original 1986 artwork has faithfully been redesigned by Philip
Marshall for the digipak and the traditional informative booklet
written by the compiler/curator Ian Peel, the same man who rebooted the
ZTT catalogue with that label’s Element Series.
By far this was always the Art of Noise’s best
album, their most accessible and commercial. Now it is back after
eighteen years of being out of print where it can be enjoyed again for
the first time in its new form.
“This
is the first work in The Art of Noise adventure series – (Three go mad
in Faversham). Coming next: “Life with Derek and Dai".
