Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room ICA 'showcase'

Well, well.
The gauntlet was thrown down this evening to post a review to read in the morning.
I feel like some 'foreign correspondent' tapping out breaking news on a wireless telegraph to catch the print deadline. I considered waiting till I could polish up the prose, but then thought why not tell it as it came off the pen.
So, as John said in his introduction, "Here We Go"...

(Bear with me, this could be a long post)

*****

DRIVING FORWARDS USING THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

When does a gig start for you?
For me, especially in London, its the minute you step on the train

I'm on my way
To the ICA
It starts to rain
As I board my train

When I travel

I see fragments of lives
In the steets that go by
Do they move, or do I?

A cemetery
A car park
Wimbledon
And Raynes Park

As I travel

People meet
People eat
People pass on the street
Bridges and stairs
Plazas and squares
Scaffolding and arches
Office blocks and churches
This City
That Wheel
A village of steel

Tiny Colour Movies
Foxx has written new linking music for the films, a score for the fragments of prose now introducing each piece. A facinating progression of the work since its premier in brighton last year.
The ICA used a smaller screen, but much better sound quality. Bassnotes to bring the house down.
Skyscraper shadows move like ships across the screen.
Like ghosts.
Is this John's most accomplished track to date, the perfect combination of sound and vision?
Liquid windows. Elements of Automobile and Sidewalking...
The Projectionist burns your ears as a nebula of unfinished features from the lifetimes of his friends flash up before us. This track is uniquely disturbing.
And then Points of Departure. Clever touches of humour in the narrative. This piece marks a point of departure from all we have seen before.
With no fuss, we are introduced to a new kind of man by the name of Alan Ingleby, whose Man Made of Shadows is not perhaps an unfamiliar title from closer to home. Who is John Foxx? Who is Arnold Weics-Bryant? Who is Mike Barker? Alan Ingleby? Dennis Leigh? Where are the edges?
Foxx said during the Q & A at the end that he would probably have been locke dup years ago if he was the subject of psychoanalysis. Agreed. Voices blurring, faces merging...
His vision of a 'parallel cinema of surreal repurposed hypermovies' continues with another new piece - Waving, a composite of clips of people waving. Funny that.
And what exactly IS the connection between birdsong and psychic transference?
Run that by me again?

There are so many links between Tiny Colour Movies and Metamatic that I could write a whole essay on that alone. We can see, during the Projectionist for instance, a visual 'example' of the way in which we project our own behaviour and personalities onto those closest to us, how we can effectively become each other. There is a child, an adult and invisible women in all of us.
He's A Liquid uses this same idea, that people become like one another after they have been together for years.
They get married too much.

How come he didn't actually use that lyric tonight?
More than a few times there were some Quirks like that in the latter set...

Metamatic
Half an hour after this awesome showcase, which to my ears is simply the very best of John foxx and has complex elements of closure in its evolution somehow, comes that which most people around me are here for.
That album.
All the way through. Can you believe that?
I'm not going to give away precise tracklistings here, but it won't spoil anything to say that the show's opening track was very, very welcome indeed and could not have been otherwise after Tiny Colour Movies.
Aching bass lines, crashing synths, and morphing staright into Plaza. And fittingly behind John and Louis, a giant hoarding of Italian cars.
Flickering film in the background. fragments of TCM again all through. And so much more. Logic boards, portraits, oceans, cities. All the things in my little parody above - just some of many pleasant littl eupdates and slighty altered, extended bits.

If you want to hear the album as a purist, buy the album!
Hey - maybe they should sell the album at the forthcoming gigs??

Then strangely, some flat bits. Side two.
Sound levels fell, expectancy grew. A dangerous combination.
Load/reload. Sequences move by me. A man to my right walked out, describing it as 'dance music for people who don't like dancing.'...
Hell, I danced!
Mr No was apocalyptic. Simply stunning. Burning Car is my favourite all time Foxx track I think, and to follow it with a storming version of 21st Century, with John and Louis beaming and waving was a perfect way to close the set.

Talking of closing.
I feel a sense of closure. I'm excited by it.
Tiny Colour Movies has so much of everything that I rather think it overshadowed the main event tonight, bringing the circle just.

Do you remember My Face?


*****

Thanks to Craig, Peter, Andreas, Scott etc for the inspiration to write this.
Don't let it put you off. We want more and more reviews here.

Thanks to Rob, Steve, John, Louis, Ian etc.
Mike Barker. Nice man. Often Overlooked.

This wasn't best described as a show in two parts. When you bring two things together (sound and film, Metamatic and Tiny Colour Movies) they create a third element. A indescribable 'somethng else'.

I hope everyone going to shows next week has a brilliant time - I know you will!

Sadly, I had to leave before the CO showing and the VJ/DJ set.
Shameful. Someong else can tell me how that went. Sounds intriguing.

A closing thought. John talked about how TCM has only become possible now that 'we have the technology' to digitise fragile, old film. By repurposing an extinct medium, we are driving forwards using the rear view mirror. Consider that Metamatic has just been re-purposed from master tapes, digitised to be performed now for the first time live.
And tell me that's a coincidence?

Goodnight

©birdsong Sept 2007

Excellent Mr Song If there was an "Applause" graemlin I'd have placed it here Well done I'm seething with envy I can only imagine the excellence of it all I had planned to come "home" for the Manchester gig but time and finances didn't allow Here's hoping he brings it to his beloved Europe (where it's raining like mad !)

Seconded, great review.

Sounds like one hell of a show.

Out of interest, how many of the non-album tracks did they perform?

Thanks Martin for such a wonderful review. I think you've summed up the evening just nicely.

I had a brrrrilliant evening. The only down side was I missed the CO part of the show but I'm extremely thankful that I got to see Metamatic live. I could never of dreamed that 27 years after buying the original album I'd be standing watching John perform it live.

TCM was awesome with the add ins that John put in along with some texts explaining what the film clips were about, since he did the original show at Brighton last year. I must admit I much prefered the comfort of a cinema as opposed to standing up.

Thanks to Andreas, Michaela, Craig, Sarah, Phil, Martin, Rob, Scott and all others that I met for the first time.

Peter

Thanks for a great review Martin, just wish we could have been there.

Brilliant review Martin!

It was an amazing night!

Fantastic DJ set from Dennis Da Silva, and amazing VJ-ing from John Leigh. Scenes from Hitchcock's Vertigo and John Cleese with his Ministry of Silly Walks made a guest appearance in the visuals. Hiroshima Mon Amour was a particularly convincing visual, as it featured old military footage and shots of nuclear test procedures.

Huge thanks to John Foxx, Louis Gordon, Rob Harris, Steve Malins, Dennis Da Silva and John Leigh for a totally memorable evening.

And finally, it was lovely to chat to the above, as well as all of the Metamatic crew (you know who you are), and everyone else that I met last night!! Hope you all enjoyed yourselves!

Best wishes

Sarah & Phil

Cheers for the great review Martin,like the rest,
wish I'd been there but I'll have to wait until next Saturday for my fix.

For Tiny Colour Movies:-
Two new pieces for film, and all the linking pieces.

For Metamatic:-
Six or seven

Thanks Martin,a superb sum up of the night.
TCM was fantastic,the "Q&A" after was a bit unexspected but superb,never seen John so relaxed before...and somr great quotes,like the one you mentioned "We travel forwards using the rear view mirror"

You beat me to the first post for two reasons...
1,ermm,my computer was 'miles away' in Scotland
and
2, I was just about getting to be about the time you posted!!