John Foxx And The Maths - The Shape of Things
John Foxx is to Electronic Music what Giovanni Gabrieli was to Baroque, neither one a household name yet both responsible for making significant contributions to their respective genres.
As a founding member of Ultravox! with Billy Currie in the mid 70's Foxx explored various types of music ranging from Reggae to Punk before finally helping to define a sound that would come to be known as New Wave, but it is his solo career since leaving Ultravox!, with releases such as Metamatic and The Garden that are credited by many artists as being so influential.
The Shape of Things takes his legacy deeper into the future as Foxx again collaborates with The Maths, namely experimental electronic musician and producer Benge, who also worked with Foxx to release the critically acclaimed Interplay a year previously.
Sprirus, a minimalist analog dirge, opens this new collection of post-modern electronic music pop songs that retain a distinctly retro edge. Although not exactly dance music several tracks, such as Rear-View Mirror, September Town, Unrecognized, Vapour Trails, Tides and The Shadow Of His Former Self will have enthusiasts writhing around quite nicely while contemplating Foxx's deeply meaningful lyrics.
Instrumental tracks round out this fourteen track album, each one built with layers of modular synthesizer based sequences, percussive loops and ethereal sound effects courtesy of Benge's extensive collection of über cool collection of analog and digital based electronic musical equipment.
Talk and Invisible Ray, poetry soundscape and ambient journey respectively, inject even more variety into an already very well represented release that promises to be very well received by electronic music veterans and newcomers alike.
Rating: 721,355 (out of a possible 1,000,000)
