Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx and Louis Gordon From Trash / Sideways / Tiny Colour

Sideways for me is the "highlight" CD of the year. John and Louis at their best.
Peter

The way i see it is that 'from trash' stands out as John and Louis intended as the official album due to the overall structure and track listing. With songs like 'a million cars' 'impossible' and 'the one who walks through you'. But i do think 'sideways' is the second best album they have produced together. Thats the amazing thing about this year, that two albums can be released of such quality that fans are devided on which is the best. My thought is both albums are much improved on there previous ones.

I find both albums fascinating from an engineering standpoint. They're both very dynamic compared to the previous Foxx/Gordon collaborations. From Trash, in particular, sounds magnificent on my home theater system.

Parts of Crash and Burn, conversely, sound very dense, with many elements in mono. That's not a criticism but merely an observation; I would imagine that John and Louis were going for a claustrophobic, muted sound on tracks like "Broken Furniture."

Nonetheless, I was immediately taken with the new collection of songs and how dynamic, loud, and vibrant they sounded on my system.

Hi!

'From Trash' is AMAZING!! (Well, whatever John Foxx does is amazing in my opinion!)

If I'm not playing it in my car, it's banging out of my sound system st home! John and Louis are a great combination and they sound fantastic.

I wish that I could be as creative with my synth - not enough hours in the day!

Sarah xxx

I´m with From Trash. This is what I wrote earlier in a related Forum:

I´m still with From Trash as the JF & LG album of the year. It´s the one to promote and fly their flag but Sideways deserves a special mention. It´s a grower with excellent tracks. It´s even got one of JF & LG´s best tracks, Car Crash Flashback V2. The album is more than an outtakes one and has a different theme to From Trash. This one is an electro-psychedelic classic and rightfully deserves to be known as JF & LG´s 5th studio album. It´s so good that it stands proudly in its own right and naturally is selling well.

Well done Steve for managing John!

Both these albums should be in any electro fan´s collection.

Chris C

For me, the difference is that "From Trash" sounds like a 'considered' album that took a long time to produce, whereas "Sideways" sounds like it was knocked up in a few hours. This is no bad thing; it's one of the strange quirks of making music that the tracks you make in a few minutes often sound better than those you've pored over for months.
Perhaps the only holes I can pick in "Sideways" are that some of the tracks run out of steam after around 3 minutes, and the 2 extended versions tacked on at the end are a little superfluous.

I completely agree with your last comment Herbert.

For me, From Trash is my favourite of the records released this year: Impossible is one of the best Foxx tracks ever. Tiny Colour Movies in Brighton was the event of the year because of the visuals.

I'd quite like to see someone else live this year though.

From Trash is an excellent album. Certainly one of my favourites from John, alongside The Pleasures of Electricity and Metamatic.

I never wanted to try and compare Trash to Metamatic - there's no point. They're very different albums. From Trash is very much 'in the now'. To me it felt like the album John and Louis has been working towards, since starting out together with Shifting City.

All the typical Foxxian themes are there along with some fantastic electronic music. "Another You", "Impossible" and "A Million Cars" easily rank among John's best song writing. I also think that "Running in Traffic" should have been on the album rather than "The Hidden Man" CD, as it's a great pop track.

Sideways, I like a lot. But it's very different to the 'proper' album, From Trash. These are more like demos and ideas, but it's a fantastic listen. I really love "Neuro Video", "Carcrash Flashback" and "In A Silent Way".

For me from trash is john and louis most complete album with no tracks sounding like fillers. Things like ray1, ray2 seemed like things lumped on at the end. From trash is not patchy at all although more asseblie than previous albums. Likewise sideways is pretty amazing and improved artwork as well.

That's well said. Unlike SC, TPOE and C&B, there isn't a single track I skip on From Trash.