Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx and Louis Gordon The Pleasures of Electricity 2009

I would disagree. For me, that would be Shifting City.

The only track I sometimes skip on TPOE is "Uptown/Downtown". But when I'm in the right mood for it, it's quite pleasant.

I think that's possibly the best post I've read on this forum.

And I wholeheartedly agree.

TPOE is the album that re-connects with Metamatic. I've always felt it was like a story of returning to the same city, years later.

I have been gradually noticing little bits here and there, brought up in the new mix, such as the ending of "Quiet City" at the fade out. What a lovely bit of Cathedral Oceans-style synth.

What did you make of the two bonus tracks?

Cheers for the compliment AlexS and I couldn't have put it any better when you say that: "it reconnects with Metamatic", this is most certainly the way I'll always view it now.

I've not yet listened to the bonus tracks, saving that for the moment. I'm still enjoying the completeness of TPOE, for me it is now so right up there with the big two: Metamatic, and The Garden, and through the medium of TPOE I'm unexpectedly enjoying a wonderful feeling of communing again with the same kind of mystery and excitement.

A superb review core memory.

I havn't got around to ordering the re-issue yet (too busy with Shifting City), but you have wet my appetite now

I've really started getting into the two bonus tracks. Neither made an immediate impression, but I've found them playing 'in my head' a lot recently. There's some really good vocals, nice lyrics and lovely synths and sounds going on there

Apart from maybe Twilight Room, I don't think there's going to be any lasting impression for me, and no inclination to visit disc 2 of TPOE 09, so its likely that these bonus tracks and I are going to be ‘passing strangers’.

Screenplay just can’t hide coming across as a lesser echo of Touch And Go, and a sibling of Cinemascope (already mentioned in this thread), and Twilight Room made me think I was actually listening to one of the unearthed tracks from the IMW disc 2. John’s singing is very likeable on Twilight Room, and it is quite a catchy tune, the nature of the vocals and a particular organ sound did remind me a bit of To Be With You.

Its always interesting to hear songs that might have been part of the journey towards the bigger picture, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly TPOE about Screenplay, Twilight Room could have easily lent itself to the theme, but the music just isn’t quite right.

I don’t feel these tracks add anything new to the completeness of the album, and they're more likely to detract from the experience of it for me, they also sound like they’ve been given the post Crash And Burn style shake and bake treatment, and are floating around a little bit in that occasionally unclassifiable grey area that I think must now surely exist someplace between the out-takes from the time of the Metamatic sessions, and John and Louis electro re-interpretations into that past sound.

The second disc's from the previous re-releases were designed to give us a bit more entertainment and food for thought, Golden Section was a revelation for me, and In Mysterious Ways was like rooting around in an eccentric uncle's dusty attic, so I wonder now just how TPOE’s disc 2 is likely to be regarded in future?
Perhaps for some fans such as myself it will be thought of merely as an archive of 2001, but maybe for some others it could instead be disc 1 that will be seen as an unnecessary makeover?
I guess it all depends on your tastes.

Sometimes you look back on a post and think, crikey, I sound a bit dismissive there about a few things! didn’t mean to sound quite so harsh, so in lieu of too much editing on my previous words, I’m going to Up The Positive in a new post

It’s a funny thing! but our minds can just completely change about something, and that process can take you by surprise, as all today since I wrote the above post late last night I’ve had Twilight Room playing in my head!

I have to concede that it’s really quite a good track with a lot of warmth and rhythm, and I’m sure it could easily have been tweaked just the right amount to appear on the main album and fit in with tracks like Uptown/Downtown or Nightlife.