Metamatic Forums John Foxx Collaborations D'Agostino/Foxx/Jansen/ - New Album

Let's see if this one gets deleted...

From stevejansen.com:

24.01.09: a secret life

having met during their live performance in Brighton with Harold Budd, John Foxx invited steve to record tam-tams (gongs) for a potential collaborative release. the dark tones of the tam-tams created a bed for atmospherics and acoustic piano work to be added. due to various other commitments the release seemed to be shelved until steve d'agostino (keyboardist and recording engineer) took it upon himself to complete the work. release date is set for March through Metamatic/distributed by Universal and will be under the artist names D'Agostino/Foxx/Jansen.

Thanks Halloway...I guess this is one we've been waiting for for a bit.

That's excellent news. I've been waiting for more info about this one.

Great news!

Looking forward to it!!

Thanks, Halloway for posting this.

Very good news indeed. Is it gonna be 'the bomb'?

Just come back from holidays and this is great news. Another year of numerous Foxx releases.

How exciting it is, I hope it never stops!

The golden age of Metamatic!

Chris

You might want to check this out for the full track-listing and release date for this and a brand new John Foxx solo album entitled My Lost City.

Rob

Yep! I've seen it.

Great news!

Cheers!

Chris

Don't know if it's been remarked upon already but the Townsend records page for the "A Secret Life" album states;
"***Pre-order the album and recieve the first track as a download now***"
http://www.townsend-records.co.uk/product.php?pId=10003293&pType=1

Anyone done so yet?

Dear Townsend
If I order both this and 'City' at the same time will I have to wait for 'Secret' to come out before I can get both?
yours
D

Cheers Herbert!

Pre-ordered both this morning! I'm really looking forward to having a secret life in my lost city now!

Hmmmmm - a secret life in a lost city...sounds like a plan for a holiday!

Is that the cover then? Completely white?

eek! swear i saw a kind of bauhaus art nouveau illustration there a moment ago. tis gone!

It looked like a simplified version of the new Metal Beat labels that feature on the Metamatic deluxe edition CDs minus the text - perhaps it was just temporary artwork?

Just had a listen to the free download you get after preordering. If it's representative, this album ought to fit nicely alongside Translucence/Drift Music and the Cathedral Oceans albums.

mmm. I'm not ordering afore I see the cover!

I've downloaded the first track.

After a few listens it reminds me of Vangelis's Blade Runner sountrack but without the Demis Roussos

Not bad at all

According to Myspace, the cover's not quite finished yet, but it will be in a few days.

This doesn't sound like my kind of thing - a bit too abstract. Interesting sounds though, but more like background noise then melodic.

I guess it's hard to judge just from a sample though - unless that was the best bit with which to represent the whole album!

The only comparison I can make at the moment is with Cliff Martinez's soundtrack to "Solaris".

The cover has now been posted here ...

Rob

I haven't ordered this album, or My Lost City. From what I have read, I don't think the musical styles would appeal to me. I will reserve final judgement until I actually hear some of the tracks (and of course read the reviews that you fine people will no doubt be posting).

Anything from John Foxx I'll religiously buy. Not only for the music and lyrics (where relevant) but for the artwork that graces his CDs.

He's at the fore-front of synth music, always very avant-garde and arty, very tasty like champagne.

Chris

I will rely on the comments here to decide whether I buy too!

I really like that soundtrack and it fits the emotion of the film so well, is this a recommendation for me to get 'A Secret Life', though I think I need to hear a few samples first, hopefully some might appear on Johns MySpace page..?

A Secret Life gets a glowing review in this months Wire magazine (issue 302). The review is by Mark Fisher who wrote the sleevenotes for Glimmer

just read it, I remain intrigued, but my brain is deaf and it didnt help my ears!
I need to hear more samples... please

This album sounds absolutely fascinating and will be a intriguing follow-up to My Lost City.

The text of Mark Fisher's review as published in Wire is online now at thequietman.co.uk

There's an interview with Steve Jansen here (from November 2008):

http://www.davidsylvian.it/interviste/2008-davidsylvianit-interview-with-steve-jansen

Apologies if this has been posted before.

Received mine from Townsend this morning.

oh!!!

okay, I know its only a couple of hours since you posted but any chance of a review? presuming you've had a chance to listen to it yet I'd love to hear some opinions on it

Mine arrived this morning.

Just listened on the way back from my girldriends in my car.

Probably the most ambient sounding John Foxx ever.

I need to listen in full immersion with my headphones on to truly judge it.

The booklet has just pictures,no notes & it is a bit basic.

I got my copy in the post this morning.

Listened to the CD there and thought it was lovely.
(And, importantly, not too long, clocking in at a tidy 36 minutes, just like albums used to be in the good old days ;-)

Bravo to Steve D'Agostino for nurturing these recordings to completion!

The announcement that A Secret Life is OUT NOW is accompanied by a new photo from the same series as the sleeve artwork

http://blog.thequietman.co.uk

My copy of A Secret Life also arrived today. The only way I can sum it up is "hugely disappointed". The music is sooooo quiet for me to get anything out of it is turn the volume really high.

I agree with you Brian, extremely basic. Not a lot of thought put into sleeve design other the the cover artwork which I like.

Peter

I totally agree - it's an exquisite album, which reminds me (certainly on the first track) of Crimsworth by Bill Nelson - which is no bad thing.

We must be listening to different albums - as A Secret Life sounds just how I expected it to based on the section I'd heard over on myspace.

I think it is extremely good. Quiet? Far from it. I would say "atmospheric" And the booklet? Sparce and minimal like the recording.

Well, if your faveourite Foxxwerks are "Frozen Ones", "Rockwrok" and "Underpass", this album probably won't be up your street.

I'm reminded though of "Distant Smile", and as much as I love the punk racket of the main song, for me the best bit is the 30 seconds of ambient piano intro

Received my copy yesterday and listened to it earlier for the first time. The first word that springs to mind is sparse. Some lovely piano sections but at times very little seems to happen.Then again ambient music is intended as something to play in the background,a sonic tint.

Have to agree with many comments here. It's a beautiful piece of work and full credit to all involved - a very nice and relaxing way to end a very busy March.

To buy, or not to buy. That is the question. Sadly, money doesn't grow on even Quiet Trees, so I'm carefully weighing up the comments here.

It seems that A Secret Life is most like Translucence and Drift Music - a package that, as a whole, just doesn't connect with me. Though on the other hand I think some tracks are very good and affecting...

I think I'll be holding off pre-orders from Townsend in future considering that Amazon have the CD in stock for £8.98!

I ordered mine from Amazon - and I've just been informed that it came through the mailbox this morning.

OK, this is clearly John at his most abstract.

The high point for me after the first couple of listens, is the second part, which seems to have achieved the right balance between the abstract atmospheres and the melodic piano lead. I enjoyed where the piano took me in part three, except it wasn't as continuous and consistent as I'd initially hoped. The rest I found more difficult to digest, not unlike Tangerine Dream at their most experimental; sparse, droning, metallic and resonating icy chills, and irritating after a while.

It's a strange recording because a part made of grating metallic echoes that almost makes you want to hit the skip button will suddenly change into something much warmer, smoother and melodic.

While a lot of it sounds like a recording of somebody walking round a shop full of wind chimes or a dozen clanging frying pans struggling to fit back into the pantry, it has some genuinely lovely bits - mostly the piano, which adds an element of melody to what is otherwise, metallic background noise.

I do look forward to experiencing this on the headphones, as it is a very sonic album - it'll either be a real joy or give me a headache! This is the kind of thing that I enjoy working to - it's (mostly) unintrusive and subtle background sound, and slightly reminiscent of Cliff Martinez's soundtrack to Solaris in places. If anything it's the tam-tams that I'm not keen on.

I do enjoy the piano element to this and I really wish there was more of it. We're in Translucence/Quiet Man territory, but with more going on in the background, which gives it a little more sonic variety. However this is very sparse and I prefer my instrumental music with more melody and substance.

This was an unfinished project for a while, and to me, it still sounds that way. While I like some of the direction it starts to go in, but then it doesn't actually go anywhere. Definitely the most diverse album with John's name on it - you certainly can't compare it to anything else beyond the Budd collaborations in places. I could imagine this playing alongside an installation or exhibit in an art gallery - but not an album to sit down and listen to.

In all honesty, I can't imagine this being something I'll return to very often, and maybe could have done without it. With that in mind, I'm glad I bought it at a lower price from Amazon. That said, I've just added it to my "John Foxx instrumental" iTunes playlist, so I'll be mixing this all up and having parts of A Secret Life playing perhaps between tracks from Cathedral Oceans and Translucence or My Lost City. Maybe then it'll work for me a little better, which is how I eventually came to adore Translucence, which I didn't like at all at first.

I struggle to get through Drift Music, so for me A Secret Life poses an even greater challenge. It's an album of atmosphere rather than anything really musical, sounding more like a sound effects record, or the soundtrack to a strange science-fiction film; certainly not something you'd put on to have guests round. Unless you don't want them to stay very long.

Great review Alex,

Your thought's on this album are very close to mine.

I wish there was a bit more John on it to be honest.

I've yet to listen to it on headphones.
It wont be tonight either since I've had a migraine all day.

Later in the week hopefully.

Brian

I would definitely recommend headphones, and naturally at a comfortable (low) volume: there are some lovely sounds in the background that benefit from the use of cans.

After the second listen, I like this. I wasn't sure after Listen 1 which merely took on board the occasional glitches, interrupted/effected passages of sweet piano, and sections of metallic percussion droning repetitively. Like finding your way around a new town. After Listen 2, these drones seem to be subtly shifting much more. Unless I am being generous and merely WANT them to shift - that is a possibility. I will say though that I have heard numerous albums that are just one track and really do seem to go nowhere for an hour or more: this for me is not one of those (not least because it is in six parts and relatively short).

I am not sure quite where the music and I have gone between the start and end but I find myself pondering the title a lot. Which part is the secret life: the piano or the percussion? Or is the whole of it a secret life? The piano could represent happy social events that are split by periods of introspection, solitude and drudgery. Who are all these people we know when they disappear behind their facades? Who do I become when I step outside my front door? Alternatively, perhaps the piano sections are the secret life: the quiet pride in artistic projects, or simple pleasures such as noticing the change of seasons, whatever.

Bottom line is I like it. I think.

I listened to it on the headphones this morning and was pleasantly surprised - you are much more surrounded by all the sounds and jingles and more absorbed into the atmosphere. If anything I enjoyed it more on the headphones. But clearly you need to be in a relatively quiet environment! One of the nice things about ASL is that there's something new to discover with each listen, whether it's a subtle background note or a new clang.

I don't dislike this album, but I am a bit frustrated by it. To me it feels there could have been much more to it than what there is. Did it really take three people to make something so sparse?!

Anyway initially, it doesn't "take" me anywhere or give me any sense of visualisation, if that means anything to anyone!! But maybe that'll change in time. In many ways it only feels like half of something that needs its other half - visuals - a bit like TCM, except that clearly stands up as an album in its own right.

You're absolutely right about the listening environment - it's a vital part of the interpretation and experience of any "ambient" music.

To appreciate it properly you have to actively "listen" to it. I find in general that John's music, and especially the 'instrumental' material that I prefer can't just be 'heard' and least of all not in fragments.

Except that I don't regard A Secret Life as ambient music at all.
Are we listening to the same album??

For me, this is more of a complete piece than most of the other material John has released recently. It is absolutely bursting with memories, imprints, recollections -I have made notes that read "one of the most intensely personal albums Foxx has ever released" and "experimental and daring. Challenging, taking sonic risks with his own emotions". It's very sinister and confrontational too perhaps that's what is upsetting people?

Far from going nowhere, it took me on a journey through John's factory townscape, and dreams of escape. Fantasy and frustration. I found the themes and ideas expressed here quite threatening, and that is great to see because it gives the album genuine identity and uniqueness.

Unless I'm missing something, there's more Foxx in here than in anything since, well, since...

I'll come back to that, but I am disagreeing with the whole stark, empty simple thing I'm reading here.
It's rich with presence and melodrama, brilliantly composed.

One of John's least familiar releases, but isn't it good to see him still doing things differently and sending us a proper curveball now and then, lest we forget where he's coming from in our misconception that we've actually caught up with him.

Made sense to me, at least.

Based on one listen (with a lot of distractions), my main problem with this seems likely to be that there isn't enough of it. Some beautiful moments here.

Got my copy on Wednesday and had one full listen to it until yet.
This is for sure "new" stuff of John and very unusual. But based on my first listen I can say it is interesting stuff - very nice for relaxing after a hard day. Certainly no commercial stuff but nice. I can imagine this is no music for everyone's taste but I "have an ear for it".

I think the best method is listen to it with headphones. Will do it next...

Quite. At the risk of sounding like I buy my music by the length, did it really take 3 people to come up with a scant 36 minutes of sub-Eno ambience with a little Blade Runner thrown in?

I’ve seen this in the shops for £15 and would be fuming if I’d paid that sort of dosh for something so slight.

Disappointing.

There's not much, but what there is, I quite like. At times it's like a sparse isolationist ambient album haunted by the ghost of Erik Satie.

...the last album?

I wouldn't say I'm disappointed in A Secret Life, as it is exactly what I was expecting. Whether I really wanted it or not is a different question, but I was interested enough to give it a chance.

My dictionary definition of ambient includes:

1. of the surrounding area or environment'

...completely enveloping; "the ambient air"; "ambient sound"; "the ambient temperature"

...Ambiance as a term in art, meaning "atmospheric effect of an arrangement.

All of which I think perfectly describe A Secret Life.

Now I wouldn't go as far as referring it to music or even an 'album' as it isn't either - it's more of an audio experience; a soundscape.

It certainly has its place in my collection, and while I initially thought I wouldn't play it much, I do keep coming back to it. However it still doesn't move me or project me into John's worlds in the way that Translucence does. For me that album, really connects with John, whereas I just don't get that with this.

My conclusion is that this kind of ambient is about the limit in my taste. As I said before I struggle with Drift Music, and I'm left yearning for something more musical and structured.

That said, I don't doubt that there will be times when one of the parts comes on, at just that perfect moment when everything around me is right and it simply falls into place.

Just purchased ASL online a few minutes ago, though I have to say not from Townsend as at 36minutes duration by today’s CD standards I’d consider that to be more like an EP, and should be at a more reasonable price.

Everyone’s initial comments here, the disappointed, and the favorable, have all been really helpful in gaining an understanding about this album without my having heard it, lots of food for thought providing a clearer picture, and particularly so with the very insightful reviews about it’s musical nature. From all that’s been said it certainly sounded like something I might like, but until I made the decision to get it, it was on a holding pattern for me. For anyone who’s still in that unsure position then you may like to know that Amazon now has samples up for the whole of the album, and this certainly made the decision an instant one for me.

Birdsong also has a very short but beautifully put review there, and I really hope I’ll feel something of the same elation after hearing the album at length

Finally got to listen on headphones.
Total immersion.

There's a lot more to it that way.

Shimmering factory generators
Time running piano backwards
Industry interrupting Blade Runner dreams
Metalbeats of machines
Chiming of bells whilst I drift away.

My opinion of this album has changed.I need to listen again.

It reminds me of Music for Airports. It is definitely ambient and very unique. I haven't heard much of Jansen's solo output but perhaps it's the first ambient record to feature these chiming gong sounds.

It's probably one of the best ambient records that I've heard. For those who would like an ambient record in their collection this is the one to buy.

Well done to all parties. Like we all know in art the simplest forms can be the most interesting and enriching.

Chris

A Secret Life - D'Agostino/Foxx/Jansen

A walk through F....

Even before you play this album, there is a sense of mystery about it. The clue is in the tracklisting and the sparse monochromatic artwork, titles whose operating principle is holistic and analog. Self organising. Read slowly.

Part 1 not empty, but full of space. Light and shadow. Wind chimes and feng. Treated piano against a backdrop of tam tams and percussion. Hills and streets. Dreams of arriving.

Part 2 a hugely powerful presence. The listener, forward. Ominous and foreboding. The Quiet Man emergent. Chau gongs, black copper oxide. Intense. Bellini and Puccini, waltzing with Oppenheimer in the ever present hum of a distant machine. Melody is lonely, despairing and painfully beautiful. The sinister drone builds an atmosphere that evokes an intermittent spirituality against which the piano is crystallised. A battle of mistrust between tam tams and keys. Backwards treatment of sharp notes. Defiant. This is Foxx walking free, looking down and looking back. Experimental again, enjoying the freedom to reflect, to inspire. To challenge and inform with an audacity and subliminal grandeur that is little short of genius.
Part 3 more gently. A strident confidence. Allows exquisite underplaying of the lead. More Jansen than Foxx, more production than performance. D'Agostino's role is clear. Who is The Hidden Man now teasing out the tones, and pulling strands? Just as you lead, so shall you follow... in this track you really now start to feel the interplay among the three composers. A trinity of no coincidence. Sonic pathways start to emerge between the respective patterns. A crumbling fugue of sound...
Part 4 more freestyle, less structured. The piano's serenity belies the psychotic melodrama of the percussion. One can imagine that they particularly enjoyed performing this track, for there is teasing and mockery. A smile and a whisper. A nod and a wink
Part 5 contrapuntal. A persistent mechanic hum accompanies Foxx as he wanders through his imagination and his youth, drifting up into the blue hills outside the factory. A man at work has daydreams, stealing moments of another's time, until despondency returns - as if it never left - riding out the passing time of futurism in a chariascuro of light and shadows. Sounds like the sleeve art. Adagio perfectum.

The album could end here. Such is the intensity of the music that it is impossible to believe barely 30 minutes have passed. Time heals nothing.
So what does Part 6 bring to the whole? A sense of close and content. A return to the beginning. The peace of Bowland, where the mechanical hum is just a memory. An impression on the wall in a derelict warehouse. Remorseful, that what might perhaps have been has come to nothing. Foxx himself is distinctly quiet, almost absent on this final track. Little more than an imprint, leaving gaps.
There is something fundamentally admirable about an artist who knew at the beginning of his career that he would save the best till last.

Waiting? You've been waiting?
After all, this time, come, take my hand
And when the streets are quiet, we'll walk out in the silence.

Here is a place where he once was. The Secret is to leave things out...

© birdsong march 2009

Got my copy this weekend. Gave it a cursory listen - very relaxing. But I think I'll need the right moment and the right frame of mind to give it full attention.
Also pleased to spot it in a local record shop window.

“So open all the pieces we dream...”

It’s been a few weeks now since the first time I listened to A Secret Life, and from when it unexpectedly became an album that I really look forward to hearing, and growing to take such a prominent place over any recent Foxx related work that I’d choose to play, overshadowing My Lost City in this respect.

When I first learned about the collaboration with Steve Jansen it didn’t register too much in my mind, and as we got nearer to the release date I was still lukewarm about this album. I can’t really say why that was, maybe it was something to do with the fact that I’ve never followed Jansen’s solo work, so the tam tams were going to be new for me, and when it was also announced that Steve D’Agostino had stepped forward to be the one finally to fit all of the pieces together, I wondered about the collaborative vision, and who, or what had ultimately shaped the realization of the album. Not that it necessarily matter’s if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and for me ASL sort of actually is, but the fact is, with all those potential new releases from John on the horizon, I almost passed over this album in my list of priorities as being the new ‘John Foxx CD’.

The very clear comments made on the forum by other listeners certainly gave me the feeling that this was a work I’d more likely enjoy, than not, but still I wasn’t quite sure, at least not up until that first moment of experiencing the tinkling and chiming sounds sparkling away in the beautiful opening of Part One, and typically it’s the one you almost overlook that sometimes becomes the one you end up loving.

“Something is about to appear...”

For me, ASL describes in its music the gradual emergence of something into the world. Maybe it’s for the first time, or maybe it’s even a return, but something is starting to appear more visibly. At the beginning of the album it’s not quite fully realized, and as the music progress, this ‘thing’ continues its attempt to take a more physical shape.


“Are we running still? Or are we standing still?”

I love the shimmering machine-like drone that makes its presence felt amidst the musical touches of movie ambience, with sounds that are undoubtedly reminiscent of the Bladerunner film, and there’s a yearning, or a long held emotion that’s being contained as a piano tentatively speaks out in occasional echoes. The music seems to hover or to mark time on the spot, only the returning piano appears to move slightly forwards, sometimes meanderingly, and sometimes more purposefully. There are a few moments when I feel like I’m not so far away from electronic classical music territory, and nudging on the borderland of a Windham Hill album with its distinctively evocative landscape cover image.

ASL is a bewitching album, but like a dream, I always feel like I’ve run out of time, and all too quickly it has carried me to the light at its end. I awake and realize it’s all over, and I’m left with this need to return again to those 36 minutes of delicate reverie. Its not an overly complex or emotionally demanding experience, but to the credit of the album and the collaborative trio, some listeners in the forum have felt inspired to state that the instrumental impressionism of the work says more for John than he might have been saying in his lyrics in the last decade, and however you regard this, it is beautifully composed, and for me the more I listen to it, the more I feel I must.


“There’s a shadow man, in a shadow room...”

Is there a route into a celluloid existence hinted at in the photograph at the centre of the CD booklet, where illumination emerges into a dark room as a man stands before an opening of light. On the back of the CD the last photograph is of a woman watching the image of a cityscape, reminiscent of the metropolis architecture on the cover of MLC, and the shadow of a man is seemingly cast upon the screen. His figure is caught in the beam of projected light as he stands behind the woman, is this really the case, or is he perhaps onscreen in that film scene, in a room and looking out at the tall buildings, a room as big as a city.

On the CD front a solo male viewer is at an intimate screening, watching someone in a film. I wonder if this film is being repeated over in a loop, or is a single frame being projected endlessly in a frozen moment of time, all cinema is about dreaming, and perhaps the viewer in the photograph is captured under a spell, staring transfixed at the screen, compelled to remain watching for all eternity.

“…Some kind of perfect life”

When I listened to ASL for the very first time it was difficult to ignore those enigmatic photographs in the booklet, and images from pulp Sci-Fi and drama documentaries rolled through my mind. Fantasy stories about individuals living in an illusion of existence, or isolationists on far off worlds communicating with others only through screens, or holographic projections. Life as a kind of interior existence, people who shy away from public appearance, or those who are alone in a private world: ”Howard Hughes staying in a darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving, sitting fixated in a chair, continuously watching movies, reel after reel, day after day”.

But the essence of ASL is very much that of the quietly spellbound rather than of the sinister, there’s more light than there is darkness in its heart. I see only the love story now when I look at those photographs, and perhaps that woman in the film is also the very same woman who is sitting in a room, watching the man onscreen, just as he is also watching her, maybe each is separately experiencing a romance for a stranger in a film. Unknowingly viewing the cinematic portrayal of the other, never to be together in reality, but mesmerized forever by the life onscreen.

”But she fades away, just as he’s fading through…”

Excellent review!

Like you, I am becoming more bewitched by this album with every play.

Cheers Birdsong,

I've enjoyed reading your full review, and also the earlier reviews by Alex S, Church Puddle, and everyones comments in general, its great having the differences in opinion expressed so well

Great review Core - I must admit My Lost City has slightly overshadowed this album in my listening, which is a shame on my part as it's an album I've really looked forward to since I heard snatches of it at Cargo. Your review reminded me that this is a really special album and I really will have to give it more attention.

Gazza

Having received the CD's yesterday, I stared at this one (A Secret Life) and wondered what to do with it.

In my heart, I knew it would be best listened to in a quiet room on a darn good stereo (are they still called that these days?). I don't have one now, and acoustics in my house are awful. I put on the i-pod (with Mirrorball that came at the ame time) and had a go at listening to it whilst running on a treadmil at the gym. No! No good. Then, back in the office I was getting distracted by many things and couldn't focus. Out comes the i-pod and in no time I was through the whole album and had finished the tasks I was trying to complete. It had an interesting ability to keep me calm and collected. I found myself drawn into the sounds but still able to focus on my work. It was filling empty slots in my brain but wasn't ousting anything.

I listened to it twice.

I can identify with the thread that says there isn't enough of this - I agree. I also think that it won't work for everyone, but that isn't a concern, as it really works for me!