Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx and Louis Gordon Shifting City advertising and reviews

I've been thinking about Shifting City recently - mainly because I've been updating my review of it (still ongoing...)

I just wondered, for those of you who had patiently waited for a new release from John for so long, what kind of advertising (if any) there was for the album at the time, and how it was received by the music press?

Was it marketed with Cathedral Oceans, since they were released on the same day?

I seem to recall just leafing through the racks in Virgin Megastore in Brighton in 1997, and coming across it... I remember being "oh! is this a NEW John Foxx album?" I was quite confused cos the date on it was maybe 1995? (Or was that Cathedral Oceans... which I also found too).

So basically, I didn't encounter any advertising for it and just chanced across it - and was quite delighted by it when I got it home! (cos it wasn't schite like most 90s synth-pop-band comeback albums! But in fact really rather good and contemporary sounding, without losing own sound)

I do recall then finding an interview with John about it in "Future Music" magazine though.

I found a copy iin HMV iin 1997 but it was before I was a fan of John's music. I only had SOR, so at the time I obviously hadn't been looking for it. It just caught my eye as it was "that weird bloke from Ultravox!"

Slightly OT but on the subject of Future Music I vaguely remember an edition of FM with Metamatic samples on the 'free' CD .. I think that may have been around that time .. or later .. not sure, they're very hazy years for me.

I seen an advertisment in nme or sounds, and it just stated John playing live in something called 'Exotour'. It was a small color ad in the back pages. It was the first i had heard from John since late '85.

yeah I think the 'free Metamatic samples' in Future Music was that same article which accompanied the release of Cathedral Oceans and Shifting City.
John explained where he'd met Louis Gordon and stuff in it.

I wonder if anybody still has this... it would be very interesting to read. Well I'd like to read it anyway

Yeah similar story here. I had my weekly wander into Sister Ray and saw 'Shifting City' and 'Cathedral Oceans' sitting side by side to each other! I remember the day clearly as Heaven 17 were doing a gig that evening at Heaven! Like Feline, I was confused by the copyright dates and stood there thinking "How the hell did I miss these by two years!?". Brian who owns Sister Ray was as confused as I was.

So, two Foxx albums in one day and Heaven 17 did 'Being Boiled' Wo-hoooo!

I have a copy of this interview together with the permission to reproduce it on this site. Please bear with me, and it'll be one of the first items to make its way into the Media Archive.

Rob

Great - this 'ere media archive is going to be like a holy grail of all things Foxx!

Will look forward to it.