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Art Of Noise: Anne Dudley, J.J. Jeczalik. Additional personnel: Tom Jones (vocals); Duane Eddy (guitar). It's a bit confusing, but this pink-covered BEST OF THE ART OF NOISE is not the same collection as the earlier BEST OF THE ART OF NOISE, which sports a blue cover. Unlike the previous BEST OF, this compilation features the African folk-via-techno of "Yebo", the clubby "Instruments of Darkness", and the lilting ambient ballad "Robinson Crusoe". This disc leads off with the wonderful Dadaist voice collage of "Opus", and includes the group's version of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" (featuring Duane Eddy on guitar) and "Paranoimia" (featuring the voice of 1980s TV icon Max Headroom). Other commercial hits are presented, particularly "Dragnet" (the theme song to the 1988 film remake of the popular TV show) and a reassembling of Prince's "Kiss", complete with bawdy vocals from Tom Jones. Although little of the group's early work appears, there is plenty of cut-and-paste fun to be had here with one of the '80s most intriguing and versatile studio outfits. Press Information |
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One of the off-beat bands to hail from the UK was the trio of Ann Dudley, J. J. Jeczalik, both keyboardists, and Gary Langan doing various instruments and sharing production chores with Jeczalik, while Dudley handled the arrangements. Billed as the Art of Noise, their music can be classified as experimental keyboard music using bizarre sounds, sound loops, and computerized vocals. The material on this compilation takes the group following their departure from Trevor Horn's ZTT Records and onto China Records. An example of their unconventionality can be heard in "Opus", in which the phrase "nous sommes, das", "nous nous" are repeated over and over and overlapped for the first couple of seconds, and the same process is repeated with different phrases and many of them while a keyboard melody is played. "Yebo" has a running and throbbing Jan Hammer-like rhythm, with some African vocals and words rapped and later sung, while a long-drawn Steve Lukather-like guitar is played. "Instruments of Darkness" is an exercise in early 90's rave, with the words "all of us are one people" and other rave shouts included. Also noteworthy is one of the producer/arrangers: Liam Howlett, later to form Prodigy. A complete contrast can be seen in "Robinson Crusoe", with its saccharine high-pitched Percy Faith-like string arrangements. The years 1986 and 1988 were two of their better years. Their rendition of the Henry Mancini-penned Peter Gunn theme, with Duane Eddy's surf-guitar, and weird squealing sound fills for the main rhythm, became a UK Top Ten hit. "Relax, you're quite safe here", says a sensuous female voice to Max Headroom (those who remember the computerized spokesperson for New Coke who bore a strong resemblance to Red Dwarf's Kryten) in "Paranoimia", which features the usual keyboard while Max performs a spoken stream of consciousness soliloquy to a lightly swaying rhythm, and even his shot at poetry: "come sweet slumber and shroud me in your purple cloak. Doesn't rhyme." And then: "DRAGNET! THEIR JOB--TO ENFORCE THE LAW AND PRESERVE THE SAFETY OF DECENT CITIZENS. DUM DA-DUM-DUM!!" Their instrumental exercise on the Dragnet soundtrack for the Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks movie is not the version on the soundtrack or the one used on MTV, but an extended mix with more vocal samples that are looped, particularly Aykroyd ("My name is Friday. I carry a badge", "Just the facts, ma'am.") and Hanks ("You got a lot of repressed feelings, don't you, Friday?") amid a sea of keyboards, drum machines, and other effects going amuck. "Legacy" is a bizarre mixture of odd vocals, keyboards, drums, and samples that's also in place on a Yello album. A song with mixed results is a cover of Prince's "Kiss", with Tom Jones on vocals. It strips down the original to drum machines and keyboards to a minimalist sound. But the backing vocalists and bursts of brass work somewhat, with a brief improvisation on the Peter Gunn theme included. "The Art of Noise is weird" says a female voice on "Something Always Happen". An A for truth on the other tracks, but not for this exercise on drums, airy synths, vibe-like synths, which is more conventional. Following their dissolution, Anne Dudley would go on to work on soundtracks as well as a collaboration with Jaz Coleman on some Middle Eastern music, Songs From The Victorious City, more exotic, but less conventional than the material in this collection, a testament to the noise...I mean the art present in the Art of Noise. 2004. Daniel J. Hamlow / USA |