Moments in Time
5
By random9q
The Art of Noise was and is, in a very real sense, a novelty band. It's the simple and enthusiastic "YES" to a kind of gushing elevator pitch:
"What if we gave a couple of solid keyboard musicians some of those new 'sampler' symths? What if we let them just, like, run completely amok playing with these samplers? Let them make WHATEVER they like, but the samplers have to be the thing. The public hasn't even heard OF'samplers' yet, so this will sound fresh, I guarantee it, no special effort! I don't know exactly how they work, but that's perfect, isn't it? I mean, it's sort of like tape-splicing only it's all in a computer, no mess on the studio floor. And other times it's sort of like a Mellotron, only it's got this super CRISP sound. So, yeah, start with that, see if we can seel an album or two? And then when they sound like they're getting comfortable with what they're doing, then we REALLY make the marketing push. I mean what if we really SOLD just this raw playtime-with-new-computer-synths? Use all the marketing savvy and money we use for the big acts or the 'boy-band' and 'girl-band' acts? Really, REALLY sold it, like with concerts that have backup-singers and the whole works!"
So, right... While the way I've phrased that almost certainly gets the genesis of The Art of Noise incorrect in fact? With a couple of decades' hindsight, to me it does feel to bluntly distill something about the nature of AoN and how many of us came to be fans. Some of us came in on the early side before the Max Headroom collaboration "Paranoimia". (I had a friend who gave me a tape copy of his LP he'd bought.) Most of us came in post-Paranoimia. (That tie-in brought quite a swell of people.) They sort-of hit their peak with some of the live concerts, at least one of which was aired on MTV. (I still rue the fact that I was not able to tape that concert, because there was a specific solo performance in it I am still amazed at to this day. I only have my dim recollection of how it went.) And their denoument, after their popularity had long eclipsed, with "The Seduction of Claude Debussy". That last album arguably being their most artistic, most polished, and most dramatic -- yet also their least accessible, such as the way it culminates in an absolutely gorgeous closing track that is barely audible. Titled "Out of this World (Version 138)", you can only hear that track if you've completely stopped yourself and given what you're hearing your full attention, it carefully and atmospherically combines all the major themes from the album into a single piece while giving a subtle percussive allusion to their long-gone hit, "Moments in Love." If it was meant as a bid to return to popularity, it wasn't exactly engineered well to do that. On the other hand, if it was meant as a graceful and artistic exit in the form of concept-album-as-work-of-love, it was perfectly executed. That's... something your typical novelty-concept band just cannot do.
This compilation is not that. It doesn't contain anything from that careful, graceful exit. It's awkward and weird. This compilation isn't the easilly accessible pop that was AoN at the height of their popularity. Nope. This is all the awkward before, before AoN seemed to sound like they knew what they were doing. This is all the tracks from the albums prior to "In Visible Silence". Well, probably not ALL-all, but closer to it than merely collecting the albums from then. Out-takes, scratch-ideas, and working-mixes that aren't quite final.
There's something special to me about listening to a couple of really solid keyboard artists just go to town and run amok with new toys, here. There's a playfulness to it that started it all. Because they weren't JUST a novelty band. They're some really talented musicians who took a chance on some brand new tech and you can hear them just... ENJOY what they're doing. Enjoying figuring it out and exploring what new possibilities could be had. In other words, what they were playing with was also extremely novel TO THEM. For some of us, particularly those of us with a musical background, and especially those of us who were and are synth nerds at heart? There's a lot of vicarious joy to be had listening to The Art of Noise's early playtime.
It almost feels like being a kid let loose with a small cadre of your best friends on the super-fancy extra-large new playground jungle-gym. Sure, you're fumbling a lot and ... maybe even falling down more than you're staying upright? Yet nobody wants to quit. It's just too much fun...
