Metamatic Forums News and Announcements John Foxx news John interviewed for show on Radio 2...

Paul Morley recently interviewed John for a new series on Radio 2 called Paul Morley\'s Guide To Musical Genres .

John's interview will be in the programme about Glitch, due to be broadcast at 11.30pm on Tuesday the 17th of June, 2008.

Here's some blurb about the show...

*****

Paul Morley is both fascinated and confused by the number of different musical genres that exist today.

In this four-part series, he sets off to find out where all of these new genres have come from and what, if anything, do they mean to music fans today.

Each programme finds Paul talking to current champions of a new music style and the artists that have influenced them.

Tune in to find out everything you ever wanted to know about psych-folk, glitch, twee, post-rock, emo and perfect pop in the company of Lou Reed, Billy Bragg and Bernard Butler amongst others.

*****

Rob

That should be a good bit of publicity for John. Morley has always been very supportive of bands like the Human League and others to have emerged from that era.

I'm a big fan of Morley but I got the impression he wasn't a fan of Ultravox! - he had a dig at Ultravox! in a Joy Division review once and can be read in his collected writings on Joy Division published late last year.

I don't think he's ever offered an opinion on Foxx' solo career though.

But then that is all so long ago - perhaps he's revised his opinion over the years.

John seems to be getting himself about a bit, which in a way is not a bad thing. It's good publicity. Should be an interesting interview and looking forward to hearing it.

Peter

And those of us overseas will also be able to listen to this.

Interesting - I wonder why John with respect to glitch? I know very little about the genre, but it immediately makes me think of Autechre and other awkwardly rhythmic stuff. I would definitely rate the sublime "Cold House" by Hood, kind of an indie-glitch hybrid, if you will.

The post-rock one should be interesting too.

I'm ambivalent about Paul Morley - he always sounds incredibly pretentious to me, although I would admit that he expresses some interesting ideas in that unique way of his.

You're very polite Mr Puddle - he's an a*se.

I'm looking forward to reviewing my opinion...

Here it is…

“For Isolation they have the same instrumaentation, but it’s more withdrawn and estranged; a song they wrote only days before that reveals Numan and Foxx as true fools.”

Review of Joy Division at the University of London, NME, February 1980

http://www.iancurtis.org/gigs/articles/16-02-1980.html

However as I pointed out, this is so long ago, and indeed it does seem as if Morley had a change of heart for in his list of 100 Greatest Albums of All Time at the back of his book ‘Words and Music’ we find;

John Foxx – Metamatic

And also from the same book in his list '121 Songs That Explain Why Kraftwerk are Kraftwerk & Just How & Where & When Their Influence Spread & Turned';

John Foxx – He’s A Liquid

I’ve a lot of time for Morley – there’s a million hack journalists out there but only one Paul Morley (and sadly a host of on-line imitators) but he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

One of the most thought-provoking and painful books I’ve ever read was Morley’s book ‘Nothing’ on his father’s suicide and its effect on him (and probably explains a lot of his Joy Division reviews!)

The show which features Paul Morley interviewing John is going to be broadcast TONIGHT...

Rob

Thanks for the reminder Rob. Hopefully I get this one 'live' rather than having to listen again in the morning.

"Glitch?!" who comes up with all these irritating, nonsense names?!

Hi Alex,

No idea but ‘Glitch’ is (sort of) – Hip Hop Cut/Splice/Paste methods applied to digital media…sort of. It’s origins are (very roughly); recording music to a CD and then scarring that CD with a knife/implement of choice, playing back the CD and recording,re-mixing,sampling the rhythm of the glitches created by the laser of the CD player passing over the knife marks – and using the raw material from this to create sound collages, so the tag ‘Glitch’ does fit I suppose. That’s what it was about 10+ years ago when bands such as Oval were doing it, but now with artists such as Fennesz etc it mostly involves processing random sounds/noise through (very expensive) software such as MAX/MSP.

David Sylvian used the original CD/Knife method to process the backing vocal on the track ‘The Only Daughter’ on the album ‘Blemish’, which also features Fennesz’s processing on the track ‘A Fire in the Forest’.

Gazza

It was all explained (rather well I thought) in the show. Its all about how mistakes, faults and experimentation have become an artform. The term really describes the progression of Acid House to IDM and beyond very well.

A fascinating, if rather fragmented half hour, exploring the history and development of electronic music. From Wendy Carlos to Kraftwerk, from Brian Eno to Autechre, from Ultravox! to Timbaland.

people like Eno walked across the field and left a few footprints in the long grass. Others followed, and started to wear a path. Ultimately Timbaland and Missy Elliott laid a three lane motorway down and put Little Chefs on either side
(NB. This is NOT a quote from Foxx, but my own precis of Timbaland's excellent summing up)

It's essentially about how computers have enabled non-musicians to make sonic representations of music

Great little interview with Autechre, and typically insightful and witty observations on "the aesthetics of machinery" from John Foxx:

making electronic music is kind of taking revenge on the factories

Extracts of Metal Beat, contextualised with Tomorrow Never Knows and Smokestacks Lightnin'. Really interesting stuff - but at only half an hour it was never going to be definitive.
Should be a good series.

Isn't it great how John Foxx music just seems to fit everywhere...?

I finally got to hear it last night on iplayer - it seemed to be more about The Edit as an ideology rather than 'glitch' - but life's far too short to split hairs and Morley knows what he's talking about so I'm not gonna argue with him (and I'm certainly not going to be the one to start putting such vast, wonderful experimental musics in such restrictive genre titles!).

It was a good show (and I think it's fair to say that when Morley spoke of 'Metamatic' it's clear his opinion since 1980 has changed), I hope he does a few more shows like this - I've always liked the way Morley is prepared to get involved in the process as he did with Matthew Herbert in the programme, rather than be a detatched observer as others would be.