Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx And The Maths Evidence

I received my copy of Evidence yesterday and had my first play today. As alluded to elsewhere on the forum this album feels experimental and quite different to Interplay. I played Xeno & Oaklander Set & Lights straight afterwards. This is an album I have always considered quite left field, but in the context of the preceding music, it felt almost mainstream.

Evidence is beautifully packed with some wonderful artwork. My stand-out track from the first play is My Town.

Mine came yesterday too. It's a bit too early for me to form an objective review. I have to admit, the first couple of listens left me somewhat underwhelmed.

Perhaps it might have been better an EP as originally planned, as I didn't find it had any kind of album-like flow whatsoever. It's certainly more obscure/leftfield than The Shape of Things.

The two tracks which struck me the most are That Sudden Switch and Changelings.

Sets And Lights is on of those 'awkward' albums. I love it, but it has taken me some time to access.

It does work though in the context of Evidence, which serves brilliantly as a gateway to new experience listening to John's collaborators in their own right.

Regarding Alex's comment. I think thats' a shame really. It's easy to expect too much. If it was 'just' an EP then people would doubtless have been baying for new material, so it makes good sense to introduce new pieces that link the more familiar pieces together. It shows also the richness of material and creativity that The Maths have to offer. John Foxx never stands still for long!

I hope it grows on you. First play or two is, I agree, very difficult to comment on objectively.

I'm thinking it'll be a slow grower... one of those albums which needs time.

My immediate first impression was that it did have much more of a "compilation" feel than that of an album, hence my comment about the "flow" above.

Of the new material, it almost feels like a conscious decision to move even further away from the more accessible sound of Interplay. This shift started with the darker, Shape of Things, and has clearly gone further still with Evidence.

That said, for reasons I'm not going into here, I'm not in the best frame of mind for music at present.

Received my copy yesterday. First proper listen this morning, via my phone.

Excellent stuff, I thought, some nice tracks, and weird bits, and then.. Changelings!!! WOW!!!! How good is that?

Worth buying the album for, anyway!

Wasn't "Changelings" a free download a few months ago?

It does stand out as the best track on there for me, I think. That's the one which keeps going around my head, which is odd as when I first heard it a while back (as above?), I didn't care for it whatsoever!

I've listened to the album a few more times on speakers and headphones. It has its moments, but overall it still isn't doing much for me at all, sadly.

Evidence is happening.

Correction. Evidence is 'a happening'.

It soundtracks an event that changed people's lives in a massive Victorian Gothic palace with leaves blowing across the floor and thousands of people experiencing themselves and each other. It's 1967. More or less the same intense and free-thinking landscape that spawned the John Foxx and Louis Gordon album, Sideways.

Outside, litter is blowing into stairwells where it will lie undisturbed for many years.
Inside, giant scaffolding lines the towering walls and people sit on step ladders, swaying and smoking. Some wearing flowers and slightly ridiculous headgear. Others in suits. To the sounds of 'the Floyd' on a stage somewhere near the back, two men, smartly dressed, hold up single digit numbers in an endless random sequence, in front of a projected film of oily slides and merging gaudy colours.
Another film on another wall shows a looped series of automobiles on an endless Los Angeles highway, intercut with grossly exaggerated close-ups of insects, pylons and the faces of unknown smiling women.

Droplets of melody are casually discarded onto the swollen ocean of bass that the floor has become, where Naivety, Experience, Confidence and Experimentation squirm among naked lovers. From the flotsam and detritus of bodies, a woman's voice rises like that of an angel on interstellar overdrive, encapsulating a moment that is not of this world. Transgressional psychedelia.

A young chap in just his underpants, with a towel around his head, rides a unicycle, gyrating in and out of the couples on the floor. Rother, Schneider and Boyle converse with Jan Lenica over coffee. Everything (and everyone) is whimsical, casual, dismissive and slightly odd. There are probably some dogs.

Think of that 1985 album that no-one likes, waltzing around among the stars, but with the gravel left in and the barbs unpicked. Turn on the celestial voices and set the controls for the heart of Shoreditch. Improvisational transcendence. Slightly frantic.

Three movements, a dream sequence and a charge of disorderly conduct. Confusion, laughter. Kaleidoscopes, mirrorballs and a delusional painting machine.

1978 waits behind the door. Like a mongrel waits. And just for that moment, in the early hours of March, she and I are the only lovers left alive. The streets are quiet and the rain is gently falling.

Ceci l'histoire d'un homme -

And I mean that most sincerely.

After a week of examining the evidence, I'm left to conclude that The Maths have done all they can (and perhaps should) in their current form.

Granted, Evidence isn't a new full album as such (we always knew it wouldn't be), but more a collection so to home the various collabs & remixes alongside hints of new ideas. Personally I'm a little bored with the repetitive city/woman/suit lyrical themes (I've got Metamatic for that), and while there are some nice sounds on there, it isn't breaking any new ground, unlike how The Shape Of Things was a nice, dark contrast to the dynamic of Interplay. And aside from "Changelings" (which is brilliant), I'm not a fan of the other remixes at all. But again, I need to remind myself that it's more of a collaboration and collection than an album. With that in mind, Evidence does feel like a bit like it's gathering up the various loose ends, which if it turned out to be a closing chapter, then it's good to have everything in one place.

I certainly think for a future Maths album, it would be great to have the full band with the girls on board, with that much-loved violin and real bass twanging away. But I know John doesn't hang around, and I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if his next project is something very new and different. Digits crossed…

Odd that you feel it doesn't work 'as an album' because I genuinely feel that it does.
The running order again (like TSOT) is something that really makes its own contribution and (I think) has been considered with some understanding and sense of wholeness.

Hey ho - can we agree to disagree?

It's one of John's most psychedelic album to date, and (I think) all the pieces reference one another very well. Only the bonus track stands alone in that respect - which is why it is what it is.

But of course

Discussion would be all a bit boring and a bit like the Facebook "likes" if everybody said the same thing all the time!

I have to admit, I'm surprised I feel this way about it (given I'd been really looking forward to it after hearing the title track), which is on the whole, rare for me for a Foxx release. Maybe my expectations were set too high, or quite simply it just isn't pushing the right buttons for me personally.

After the first few plays, I stopped making it as far as the bonus track

Psychedelic... there's a point to mull over. "Evidence" itself is certainly worthy of that description, as it does have that lovely Beatlesy/Shifting Cityesque/Golden Sectiony quality to it.