I once write about how I rarely read albums reviews and I just pick my next album based on the cover (which I think it’s a bad habit, because I feel like I’m missing out a lot of good albums!) so one of my friends told me to turn it into a series when I talked about how I started listening to Steve Hauschildt. And I thought why not since I always do it.
My post is about John Foxx and his outstanding artworks. I sorta talked about him before in My Best Discoveries This Year but I didn’t give him enough appreciation for his work. John Foxx isn’t only a musician, but he is also a photographer and graphic designer, collaborated with some artists and released three *cut-up & collage* films. And the best way to describe his work; where he mixed between digital collage and multiple exposure- is dark, super vague and abstract. And I absolutely dig his style. *can you see it? there is a lot to get inspired by!*
The Quiet Man series are my favorite work by him, because the things that influenced him are the things that personally love and get inspired by.
The Pleasures Of Electricity
“Then he had a phase of wanting to absorb as much current as he could stand. This had a remarkable effect. The impression of shifting images accelerated until he became a softly glowing blur – like cigarette smoke uncoiling in a strobe light. He claimed that electricity stimulated him, made him exhilarated, but afterwards I could see that he looked fainter and more distant than ever.
I was also beginning to catch glimpses of something ruined behind the boyish appearance. It all seems to have been maintained through an act of will, the maintenance becoming inattentive as he grew increasingly detached and distracted.”
This is used as an album cover for his collaboration with Louis Gordon. * the follow-up to 1997’s comeback album Shifting City* Since I’m more a fan to John Foxx solo work, I mistakenly slept on this record *unfortunately* too long. & it was a very pleasant experience. In this work Magritte not only influenced the artwork but also the title, The Pleasure Principle resembles to John is The Pleasures of Electricity.
On this record I felt it was John’s most obvious minimalist sound than any of his previous albums (solo or in a group) but John said the whole album is made by a very strong influence from Kraftwerk. but the lyrics have some similar themes to Metamatic like psychogeography, walking through cities and skyline buildings. The similarity not only the theme but also kind of musically, the track “Invisible Women” recycles the riff from “Underpass”. My favorite track off the record is “A Funny Thing. The track is dark retro-electro with synth riffs that made it a very unique track. And it is something I like from electronic music.
This faceless man in a grey suit took a huge role in his work, features many of his songs, for example “A New Kind of Man” & Ultravox Single “Quiet Men”. The artwork of the album was originally photographed by Foxx himself and he designed it to look like René Magritte’s painting The Pleasure Principle. As we saw in the artwork of The Pleasures Of Electricity.
In “Neuro Video” artwork, we have an update version of one of the original album cover concepts for The Pleasures of Electricity. which is the faceless man in a grey suit. and continues throughout the booklet. No live shots, no text, just pure Foxx imagery.
This album leads me to listen to From Trash, their most personal album, and it’s their best. It supposes to be an album of electronic film noir, but with these metallic&analog synths I found it more retro-futuristic/dramatic 80’s, especially in “Never Let Me Go,Your Kisses burns, The One That Walks Through You”
The Pleasures Of Electricity 2
This artwork was used twice,one was inside the foldout sleeve of The Pleasures Of Electricity. And Used for a compilation album; 20th Century: The Noise. And it’s absolutely gorgeous.
The booklet of this album is done by the amazing Barnbrook
Tower Bridge Angel
Another artwork that I admire, it is used for “Quiet Man” album, without even googling it, you can see it was inspired by the masterpiece Wings of Desire mixed with 30s surrealism. It really gives me the same feeling when I see Wings of Desire cinematography, it’s so beautiful. & of course the significant element of his work “the faceless man in a grey suit” appeared here too. The Quiet Man is a spoken-word album, divide into five sections written by Foxx and read by Justin Barton merging with ambient music going through the background. & not my favorite but worth to check.
Different collages made by him for his singles that I really love.
And finally, his amazzing collaboration with Karborn! At some point in my life I *shamelessly* wasn’t interested to listen to John Foxx, until I saw “B-Movie (Ballardian Video Neuronica)” artwork that is designed by Karborn* since I liked it so much & I had to listen to the music & watch the video. The pair presented film and sound seance manifesting J G Ballard neurons. On this album Foxx collaborated with musicians like Steve D’Agostino and Benge from John Foxx And The Maths. All the music is exclusive to this soundtrack except ‘The Other Side’, an extract from the forthcoming Electricity & Ghosts album (due for release in 2015), which just happened to fit with the visuals.
After a long time of discovering B-Movie, Karborn suggested me to listen to his other project with Foxx “Evidence of Time Travel” and this album has become very special to me and literally top every record I ever heard from Foxx. As I said before about this album, it gives you the sensation of the streets of a dark future city, apocalyptic cityscape. Karborn did a very massive job of making the graphic art and AV. The record, live AV show and online visuals trace the poignant tale of a man who falls in love with the aforementioned abstract entity. John Karborn explains: “[He] cannot bear to be apart from her, so he records himself into the material as is if he had always been present.”
Short extract from Evidence Of Time Travel | The Invention from Evidence of Time Travel *a fascinating experience I had from this!*
Pink Noises 