Brilliant!
When do the seven 10-minute remixes come out?? :p
John Foxx & The Maths
Destination / September Town (download single, Townsend Records)
Hail, ye Gods of quasi-urban 70s folkadelic electro-fornication - its construction time again. John Foxx is 'back' with a new single, recorded with synth guru and sonic archaeologist, Ben(ge) 'Twenty Systems' Edwards.
Destination is the most upbeat, dance-oriented track Foxx has written for years. It has that wonderful echoing quality of analogue musicians and 'real' instruments - clean, warm and bursting with soul.
With each new release, Foxx continues his unparalleled career journey.
Just when you think you've caught up, he hits the Warp factor and re-appears miles away in the retro future of cyberspace. A silhouette in the passing headlights, walking patiently beside the autobahn of vogue.
'Now' is just another town along the way...his destination remains unknown.
September Town, neither by contrast or counterpoint, is clinical, twangy and uber-cool. Beware the one who walks thru u
[sic], for he casts a neo-romantic shadow of film noir, then belts you with a catchy, impulsive chorus. The cheekbones may have softened, but his voice still has edges.
Foxx has been praised for thirty years as a master of electronica, but he remains criminally under-rated as a songwriter. Only on a handful occasions since
In Mysterious Ways has he truly exposed this side of his work. If this release is anything to go by, The Maths will prove there'll be blossom in the twilight.
But this is no come back, or nostalgia trip.
This is here, and happening, just as effectively as it was then, cast adrift on an iron-grey ocean of credibility inhabited by the glistening splendour of some 30 albums.
If you want to know where the summer goes -
download now.
It's been a long time...
© birdsong, December 2009
