Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx My Lost City

Yessss!! - I thought about that too Alex even before hearing MLC. Ambient-y instrumental piece recorded in early 80s mmmmm.

There's clearly a dank, damp, dripping watery kind of quality to "Fog" - at least in my ears - as well as the idea of looking at glimmering lamplights and distant windows through a dense shroud of fog.

It really would have worked on this album... "St Paul's in Fog" - definately!

As I wait for this to arrive, I don't think I have looked forward to a Foxx album quite so much ever before.

Alongside the samples, everyone's early comments here are very interesting and really whet the appetite.

A Secret Life excites me in a similar way.

Being a Foxx fan has seldom featured so much anticipation - and its a great feeling

Not entirely sure I'm with you guys on (in?) "Fog". I will play it again.

I have played "My Lost City" several more times, notably at dawn travelling on the train along the scenic coastal route from Plymouth to Exeter.

I think my earlier description of claustrophobic was perhaps slightly off. I would still say it is quite insular and melancholic, but with a real sense of hope (or false comfort?) at certain moments when the music builds. "Imperfect Hymn" sets the scene with its title, its ominous atmosphere, consistent pulse, and slightly anguished vocals. By "Scene 27" though, a way out has been found, a way to embrace change. Along with (the track) "The Garden", this is very much an alternative gateway to Cathedral Oceans.

It is a beautiful album and I cannot stop playing it.

If anyone wants some great literature that will further their understanding of some of John's inspirations behind My Lost City, I can whole-heartedly recommend Peter Ackroyd's novel 'Hawksmoor'.

Also, any of Iain Sinclair's books can help to throw light on London's psychogeography and compliment MLC. His style is dense and pyrotechnical, with a mixture of piercing insights, and, ahem, wilder theories.

Hi. Just received my copy of My Lost City today. Listening to it at the moment. So far I'm up to track 8. Already I'm hooked. Melancholy true but quite gorgeous also. It's amazing to think that these tracks have been sitting in the vaults for a while. So glad they have seen the light of day.

This morning traveling to work, pushing against the blinding sunlight and walking across the tall shadows cast on the ground, (as John would put it ) My Lost City was the perfect partner on the journey, and “this is really a beautiful album” was also the description that was left in my mind. Maybe not every single part of it works for me, but I do feel there’s something very special going on with this work, its John on his own again and it’s a departure from the harder electro I’ve loved him and Louis for, will it be considered a classic by the majority of fans? interesting to see what happens over time, but for me it already contains some of Johns best songs within it, I’d put a few of them straight into my top ten favourites.

Many of the tracks are really very ‘catchy’, I cant get Barbican Brakhage out of my head at the moment, and I’m amazed at how instantly impressionable some of the tracks are, Scene 27’, which I initially implied in a previous post as being just nice church music, is actually a very beautiful song in its own right, in Johns own carefully restrained way its unashamedly joyous and optimistic. With no prior experience of the Shrewsbury tracks My Lost City really remains a fresh experience for me, only comment at present – I just wish there was more of it.

Hear! hear!

Maybe I could Help with that...

Chris C is absolutely spot on with his understanding of some of the Latin parts.
The vocal elements of Brabican Brakhage are the opening words of the last two verses of Pange Lingua, a Mediaeval Latin hymn written by St Thomas Aquinas, more commonly known as Tantum Ergo.

and the last track Scene 27 - Intro to the Voice Behind The Wallpaper, Trellick Tower 3am is a beautiful rendition of another part of the Latin Mass, being the final words of the introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer of consecration - generally referred to as the Sanctus

Simply stunning.

Just as we have invisible women, so we all have lost cities. And they mean something different to us all.

Three plays through, and I'm in awe of this wonderful album. It has inspired the following piece...

Her name was (and still is) Katherine. Some things change. Hand in my hand we walk these streets, visit these bars, and sit beside these rivers. Under trees, under railway arches, under the moon. As I sit, absorbing this music, I can feel her cool hand in mine again, the softness of her hair against my cheek as she rests her head on my shoulder. Forever in her tears. Its a bitterly cold night, and the city looks so small from here, looking east-by-twenty-years.
There are stars above us, and stars below.
We have walked miles together, years. Shared countless lovers, demons, children. And yet... spent only moments knowing how things are, wishing how they could always be.
Looking now into the shop windows down Little Clarendon Street I can hear her voice, her laughter, the reflection in the glass illuminated by her smile. She's in the crowd passing by me. A familiar face from Then.
She is there too in the stone walls that surround St John's College, in the stairwells of Christchurch where we slept when that man refused to let us in. So drunk. So late... And in the Mayday choir that floats on the morning, and the grasses in the Windrush by the tower. In the litter, the bats, the footprints on the lawn. A discarded tie, and a single shoe.

We would read together from the book of Ecclesiastes, celebrating the transitory nature of things. Futile vanity. All is temporary, yet all is always.
I walk these paths again as an Earlier Man, and she is still here. There is no greater pleasure than the joy of now, with the beings of 'here' and 'her'.
We loved, fought, cried and died on this bench, beside this bridge, and on those balconies.

But now newer rights of grace prevail. There are lights, and cars, and little metal things that beep and flash. The silence tends to hide these days, and needs to be sought. Seek, and ye shall find. Memories linger in buildings that replace those that are not quite ever gone. The slow-moving water of the canal holds the secrets that will not depart this place, carrying moments, secrets, that we have not since been free to share. Never Moments. Unlived dreams. Brilliant, unfinished creatures from the lifetimes of long-forgotten friends. And some of them are here, just as they have always been.

We sat in that corner, do you remember.? The whisky and the fire. You stood naked, and people watched you standing. There are photographs, and someone read a poem.
Until Sunday. Things were different then, but even that is empty now. Pigeons occupy the eaves where rumours used to fly. Cider with Katherine on the other side of time.

This was our place. My place, where she held me whenever I cried. Dead flowers now on the mantelpiece, in a dusty vase of my grandmothers, invisible to those who live and laugh this week in rooms where once we kissed. A hidden music plays, carried in the clouds and blowing curtains.
I remember her face, her dress, and the sound of her life. In strings, in echoes and in fragile harmonics.

Strange how moments last so long. Alway with you, long after they're gone.

© Birdsong. With special thanks to John Foxx

Amazing words Martin.

Cheers for the info on the latin mass,I spent enough time going to mass when I was a kid so I should have recognised some of it.
Saved me asking the question about the words.

Brian