John Foxx

John Foxx is a mysterious and elegant figure in England's rock history. There are some details about him that have slipped through about his time as the lead singer of Ultravox! and as a solo artist. He appeared on three LPs in the 1970s and four in the 1980s, followed by a turn-of-the-century comeback which surprised his fans and followers of electronic music. He let it be known, in the liner notes the he wrote which accompany the Assembly compilation CD, released on Virgin Records, that The Shadows were an influence as well The Swimmer, Dada and Europop.

Louis Gordon

On March 24, 1995 John Foxx released a CD called Shifting City, a collaboration with Manchester's Louis Gordon, which was categorized by many as an updated stylistic return to Metamatic. This is true but it also includes what he learned from 1990s underground dance music, along with the psychedelic pop that's been there since at least When You Walk Through Me. Also, on the same day, the first volume of Cathedral Oceans was finally released.

Related Topics:
March 24 - 1995 - Manchester

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Cathedral Oceans is really a return to Foxx's Catholic youth and his love of the cathedrals of England, the UK and Europe. One can find the roots of Cathedral Oceans in traditional evensong, Gregorian Chant, the Ambient Series of records by Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Roedelius, My Sex from the first self-titled Ultravox! record, Hiroshima Mon Amour from Ha!-Ha!-Ha! as well as Just For A Moment from Systems Of Romance. There's also the 1981 release The Garden (and its accompanying full-color book of pre-Photoshop photo montages, called Church), the soundtrack to aforementioned Identificazione Di Una Donna, the Metamatic-era Glimmer along with Morning Glory from In Mysterious Ways and the In Mysterious Ways-era Enter The Angel II and B-side Lumen De Lumine.

Related Topics:
Gregorian Chant - Harold Budd - 1981 - Photoshop - B-side

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In the 1990s and (especially) after the turn of the century, the kind of hybridization and montage that Foxx thrived in became very much the order of the day in popular culture. Like much younger generations of people making new forms of electronic pop, such as Aphex Twin, Ladytron or Goldfrapp, Foxx ransacked his and others' pasts. Buoyed undoubtedly by exciting experimentors and barrier breakers, particularly Björk and PJ Harvey, digital, analogue, low and high Art, traditional and popular, sacred and profane all compliment and enhance one another...and without shame.

Related Topics:
Aphex Twin - Ladytron - Goldfrapp - Björk - PJ Harvey - Art

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In 2000, the Porcupine Tree release called Lightbulb Sun came out. The cover art was created by John Foxx.

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2000 - Porcupine Tree

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The return of Foxx was well received by fans, and he and Louis Gordon continued to work together, almost as a single unit, as if of one mind, performing live and releasing material, like The Pleasures Of Electricity, released 21 January, 2000. Automobile is a surprise with a one-word chorus using the low-pitched scary robot voice. Invisible Women revisits Underpass as though disrupting and reconfiguring that old film or that old dream and giving it a new context.

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21 January - 2000

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Another Foxx/Gordon collab that's particularly inspiring is their Crash And Burn available on vinyl and CD, released 2 December, 2002, on Metamatic Records. "We are living in terminally splintered times / We are witnessing particularly vicious cimes," the title track's lyrics reveal, deadpan, sligthly Metamatic-ish. One can't help notice that this is late 2002, not that long after 9/11.

Related Topics:
2 December - 2002 - 9/11

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Elsewhere, there are lyrics about getting lost in the cinema, the joys of sex, the joys of walking in the city, the joys of being alone and being in groups. A startled eye is the image on the cover. Inside, there are blurred images of people; close-ups of different parts of peoples' bodies, particularly women; an overpass; slightly opened blinds. Sex Video is sheer perfection, a pulsing existential mind/body fizzle and celebration. She Robot, musically, recalls and updates 030 and Metal Beat. Lyrically, it is a litany of media buzz words concerning high-tech, communication technology and consumer electronics all applied to a perfected female hybrid, a humanoid woman less inconceivable in the early 21st Century than she was in, say, the early 20th Century.

Related Topics:
Cinema - Women - High-tech - Communication technology - Consumer electronics - Female - Humanoid - Woman - 21st Century - 20th Century

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In the middle of 2004, there was buzz that Foxx was to soon be collaborating with Karl Bartos, formerly of Kraftwerk, and with Adult.. There was also talk of Cathedral Oceans III, a CD and a DVD.

Related Topics:
Adult. - DVD

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Foxx expressed interest to several about working further with film and video, especially "disrupted" imagery, in much the same way that sound has been similarly disrupted since the nineteen-eighties with scratching, loops and sampling.

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In late 2004, from September through October, a collection of Cathedral Oceans images was exhibited at BCB Art, Hudson, New York.

Related Topics:
2004 - September

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On August 8, 2005, Cathedral Oceans III was released. Further rumors have mentioned that he might collaborate with Bill Nelson.

Related Topics:
2005 - Bill Nelson

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