History of the Art of Noise

K.M. Whitehouse

THE ZTT YEARS 1983 - 1985

Art of Noise were formed after Gary Langan and JJ Jeczalik started to sample a drum riff that had been scrapped by the rock group Yes for band's album 90125 that was being produced by Trevor Horn. It was the first time that an entire drum riff had been sampled on a Fairlight sampler using the then new Page R, allowing the programmer to sequence anything that had been sampled. At the same time Horn was setting up his to his new Zang Tuum Tumb label, co-founded by his wife Jill Sinclair, ex-NME journalist Paul Morley and with help from Langan.

While trying to secure a deal with Island Records, ZTT needed to find their first act to sign, alas without any success until Langan played a demo of what he & Jeczalik had recorded to Horn. Impressed by what the two of them had done, Horn played it to Chris Blackwell (the founder of Island Records) who in turn played it in some clubs in New York. On his return to the London, Blackwell told Horn to sign them to his new label, which in turn secured the deal between ZTT and Island.

Anne Dudley got roped in to provide the melodies after the two founder members started things off. They recorded things in their spare time as they all had day jobs, Langan – a producer/engineer, Jeczalik – a computer programmer, Dudley – an arranger/keyboard player and Horn – a producer. They were all part of Horn's production team and had all worked together the previous year on ABC’s classic masterpiece The Lexicon Of Love and the late Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock album.

They had all learnt a lot from McLaren’s attitude of ignoring the rules of music and mixing stuff up and seeing what happened. Morley became the fifth member of the group, not as a musician, his role was to inject ideas, write sleeve notes, name the tracks and be the group’s spokesperson. He originally named them the Art of Noises taking the English translation of name L’arte Dei Rumori from the Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo’s manifesto. However it was Jeczalik who actually named the group the Art of Noise as he decided to drop the ‘s’.

With the help of Bob Kraushaar, Horn & Morley complied the nine track EP Into Battle With The Art Of Noise that became the Art of Noise’s debut release as well as being the first ever release by ZTT in September 1983. A decision was made earlier that year that the group should be a faceless outfit although this led to confusion in the USA when they were awarded Best Black Act of 1984. Beat Box was the track that everyone went crazy over and boosted the EP to number one in the dance charts in the USA. Moments In Love made its first appearance on that record too, along with The Army Now that sampled the Andrews Sisters. Nobody had ever heard a record that had been created using cut and paste techniques before or an instrumental love song with the sound of hammers being hit instead of the sound of a drum. Art of Noise soon gained a huge cult following in the USA that has remained to this very day.

Beat Box (Diversions One and Two) [UK: #92] was issued in March 1984 in the UK. An edited version of Beat Box (Diversion Two) was issued in the USA as Close (To The Edit) in May of the same year. The single was accompanied by an award winning video directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski that was regarded by some as too violent as it showed traditional instruments being smashed up and cut up with chainsaws. In June the Art of Noise’s debut album was released entitled (Who’s Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! [UK: #27], four months before it was released in the UK, a vast re-working of a planned album called Worship. The LP featured Beat Box (Diversion One), the US 12” of Close (To The Edit) along with the full length version of Moments In Love. A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid) opened the album and sampled the story of the US invasion of Grenada. In November a second version of Close (To The Edit) [UK: #8] appeared with a new animated video directed by Andy Morahan.

It was around that time that the idea of the Art of Noise being a faceless outfit began to fade. The second 1984 video of Beat Box had Morley introduce the video and showed Horn behind a turntable. The media began to credit everything to Horn and Morley, which began to cause tensions within the group. With only two days notice, Dudley, Jeczalik & Langan appeared on the cult Channel Four music series The Tube hidden behind painted on face masks, except for JJ who actually wore one of the masks used in ZTT’s publicity shots, leaving Morley being interviewed by Jools Holland. When it came to their first appearance on the BBC’s Top Of The Pops in 1985 the trio were actually seen for the first time without their masks, this led to them later on appearing in the promotional video for their Moments In Love single [UK: #51].

With nobody at ZTT noticing that the group’s contract had expired, a two week show at the Ambassador’s Theatre was staged and Art of Noise were due to appear, but they pulled out of the event as there wasn’t enough time to prepare. This left Morley to improvise on stage and announced that “Last Monday when Anne, Gary and J.J. turned up for rehearsals we shot them, and now we’re back with no group, no names, no faces. We’re going to try again, just the music".

THE CHINA RECORDS YEARS 1985 - 1990

Following the events of the Amassador's Theatre, the trio of Dudley, Jeczalik & Langan departed from ZTT to sign a new recording contract with Derek Green’s new China Records label where they would go on to have greater success, leaving Horn & Morley behind to form a spin-off project called Act & Art, that only ever saw the light of day, some twenty five years later.

Work began on a new album and in October their first single for China Records, Legs [UK: #69] was released. It was from that moment on that the media began to realise that Horn and Morley weren’t the Art of Noise, only a part of it and began to give trio the credit they deserved. The group appeared in a series of publicity shots by Peter Ashworth that showed their faces only to be distorted by machinery keeping themselves hidden from direct view and in March 1986 the group released their version of Peter Gunn [UK: #8], featuring their first guest artist, legendary American guitarist Duane Eddy who had already had a hit with the Henry Mancini composition in 1959. This new version was recorded in Dudley’s living room. It entered the UK singles chart on 22nd March, remaining there for nine weeks. The promotional video for the single was directed by Matt Forrest, produced by Nina Robbins, edited by Nick Robson, Chris Stone and featured comedy actor Rik Mayall in the lead role as a private detective. The track also inspired the Pet Shop Boys to write a record their track Hit Music that would appear on their 1987 album Actually, a group that various members of the Art of Noise have worked with since 1985. With the success of Peter Gunn, Dudley & Jeczalik made their second appearance on The Tube with a live band, minus Langan, who was producing a Spandau Ballet album. They performed Opus 4, Paranoimia and Peter Gunn with Duane Eddy as well as on Top Of The Pops and The Montreux Rock Festival.

Their second album In Visible Silence was released in April and reached number eighteen in the UK charts, nine places higher than their debut album on ZTT. The album was more melodic and structured than its predecessor. The opening track Opus 4 was based around a poem called November by Thomas Hood in which lines of the poem were repeated into a vocal rhythm before being accompanied by keyboards, the closing track Beatback, a reprise of Backbeat, rounded off the album in an energetic way. Like their previous album, this one also contained the hit singles, Legs and Peter Gunn. The remaining tracks on the album: Eye Of A Needle, Slip Of The Tongue, Instruments Of Darkness, a powerful piece highlighting apartheid in South Africa, Camilla – The Old, Old Story, an ambient house masterpiece and The Chameleon’s Dish were all highlights in their own right.

On 21st June, a new version of Paranoimia entered the UK singles chart with Max Headroom as guest vocalist. The single enjoyed a nine-week chart run, peaking at number twelve and was accompanied by one of the Art of Noise’s most memorable videos directed by Matt Forrest featuring Max Headroom on a hospital trolley. This collaboration with Max Headroom came about after the Art of Noise were commissioned to come up with a new theme tune for the second series of The Max Headroom Show. In the USA the album In Visible Silence was deleted and replaced with an updated version with the original version of Paranoimia being replaced with the extended version featuring Max Headroom. As well as providing the new theme tune for The Max Headroom Show, Art of Noise also provided a new theme tune for the long running show The Krypton Factor before heading off on tour of the USA, Japan and ending at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

Late October saw the release of the single Legacy [UK: #95], based upon their 1985 single Legs with a slower tempo and a heavy bass line which transformed the track into a continuation of the original track rather than a remix. The video featured footage recorded from the show at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was taken from the album Re-Works Of Art Of Noise that was issued in the UK as a bonus LP with In Visible Silence in early December, and issued as a separate album in other countries. The album also featured the single of Paranoimia along with the extended version of Peter Gunn along with three live tracks Legs, Paranoimia and Hammersmith To Tokyo And Back that were also taken from the show at the Hammersmith Odeon. Also in that month, ZTT issued “Daft” an expanded edition of (Who’s Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! with tracks taken from their debut release Into Battle With The Art Of Noise along with tracks from the Moments In Love 12”. Those releases were the last to feature Langan as he decided to move on to continue with his own career, although he remained conected to the group.

On the 24th February 1987 they were awarded Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 29th Grammy Awards in the USA, where Dudley, Jeczalik and Eddy accepted the award for smash hit Peter Gunn. After that a video of the Hammersmith Odeon show entitled In Visible Silence was released. It included all the hits from Close (To The Edit) to Paranoimia along with Instruments Of Darkness, Opus 4 and Backbeat. The video was produced and directed by Mike Mansfield with visual enhancements by George Snow & Jeczalik. The video showcased how diverse the Art of Noise were, adapting themselves from their studio environment to becoming a live band featuring the talents of Dave Bronze (bass), Simon Moreton (percussion) and Paul Robinson (drums) and featuring Katie Humble, Pepe Lemer & Linda Taylor (backing vocals).

The Art of Noise played a key-role in two Hollywood movies of that year. The first was Disorderlies that starred the Fat Boys, where they composed, performed & produced the films entire music score. The other was the Dan Aykroyd, Alan Zweibel and Tom Mankiewicz penned box-office blockbuster Dragnet, based upon the 50’s & 60’s television series of the same name. This time they performed & produced the theme tune for the movie consisting of Dragnet March and Danger Ahead. The most noticeable version was the movie’s title sequence that featured the Arthur Baker mix. To tie-in with the film Dragnet was released as a single and spent ten weeks in the Canadian charts, the UK single had the Arthur Baker mix as the A-side instead of the Art of Noise mix. The single entered the UK singles chart on 18th July for four weeks peaking at number sixty, however the single did far better in the Swiss charts peaking at number twenty nine. It was issued just one month after ZTT re-released the single Moments In Love [#90].

In the USA Eddy released a single entitled Spies that he performed with the Art of Noise, which also features in the b-side Acton Art. This along with Lost Innocence were written & produced by Dudley & Jeczalik, and were taken from Eddy’s album Duane Eddy before the duo released their 1987 album In·No·Sense? Nonsense! [UK: #55].

The In·No·Sense? Nonsense! album was a departure from Art of Noise’s previous albums as it retained some of the musicians that appeared live with the duo along with an orchestra and choir. Paul Morley would write some time after that it was an “ambient masterpiece”. The album was recorded over a period of eight weeks with Roger Dudley, Stuart Breed, Ted Hayton and Bob Kraushaar taking over Langan’s role as engineer. Galleons Of Stone opened the album leading into Dragnet that led into Fin Du Temps that led into How Rapid? and so on until the end track. Only Dragnet was released as a single from the album although a four track promotional EP entitled No Nonsense was released featuring E.F.L., One Earth, A Day At The Races and Ode To Don Jose that were all highlights from the album. Also included were two tracks that sounded very familiar, Roundabout 727 was a cut down version of A Nation Rejects (a b-sided of the 12” of Paranoimia) along with Crusoe that was developed from the melody of the (Theme From) Krypton Factor, but the actual sound of both tracks were worlds apart.2”.

1988 was a quiet year for the Art of Noise. February saw the release of Dragnet (The ’88 Mix) [UK: #97] that came out at the same time as the UK release of the Dragnet film but failed to chart higher than the original UK single. Dudley scored the music for the British movie Buster that starred Phil Collins and Julie Walters before she and Jeczalik teamed up with Welsh singing legend Tom Jones on a cover version of Prince’s 1986 hit Kiss [UK: #5]. The single entered the UK singles chart on the 29th October and re-launched Jones’s career bringing him a new legion of younger fans. Kiss was taken from The Best Of The Art Of Noise [UK: #55] that came out in three different versions in the UK. The LP contained the 7” versions, the cassette, 7” versions with Peter Gunn, Paranoimia and Kiss being replaced by 12” versions and the CD contained the 12” versions. There were no less than seven different versions of the album released around the world from the 1988 release until it was deleted in 1992.

The following year started off with Kiss being nominated for Best British Single at the Brit Awards in February. In March the Art of Noise released Paranoimia ’89 [UK: #90], a remix by Ben Liebrand of the In Visible Silence album version, rather than the single version that featured Max Headroom almost three years earlier. Dudley & Jeczalik teamed up with South African group Mahlathini and The Mahotella Queens led by the late Simon Mahlathini Nkabinde on the hit Yebo! [UK: #63] taken from the album Below The Waste. The album included another two tracks that featured Mahlathini and The Mahotella Queens entitled Chain Gang and Spit. It was more laid back than the previous albums and saw Dudley & Jeczalik composing more material on their own. Engineer Ted Hayton was also credited as co-writer on some of the tracks as well as being credited as producing the album with Dudley & Jeczalik. The cassette and CD included two bonus tracks, Robinson Crusoe and the James Bond Theme. Dan Dare, Catwalk and Island were the other main highlights of the album. The last track was entitled Finale and in many ways indicated that after six years the Art of Noise was now done, as what they had pioneered had now become commonplace in the music business as almost every record being made in 1989 featured samples.

In 1990 Dudley & Jeczalik announced that the Art of Noise had officially ended the last two tracks they had been working on I’m A Stranger Here Myself and Cassandra were recorded for a film that became Alien Nation but were never used. Dudley had already recorded an album Songs From The Victorious City with Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman that was yet to be released before going on to release another acclaimed album on her own entitled Ancient & Modern in 1995 and scoring music various films including The Full Monty. Jeczalik released an album full of samples called JJ Jeczalik's Art Of Sampling in early 1993, before returning under the name of Art of Silence between 1995 to 1997, releasing the single West 4 from his artofsilence.co.uk album before retiring from the music industry.

REMIXED

Before Art of Noise spilt in 1990 they helped to promote a remix album entitled The Ambient Collection and its lead single Art Of Love [UK #67] all subtly remixed by Youth. The album featured tracks from In Visible Silence, In·No·Sense? Nonsense! and Below The Waste which acted as a farewell album. Following the success of that album China Records released a second remix album in 1991 entitled The FON Mixes that included the hits Instruments Of Darkness (All Of Us Are One People) (The Prodigy Mix) [UK #45] and Shades Of Paranoimia (The Carl Cox Mix) [UK: #53]. The whole album was an album of techno mixes from the likes of Graham Massey, L.F.O., The Ground and Mark Broydon. A film entitled Motorway was made by George Snow to accompany the album, using it as the film’s soundtrack. The promotional videos for Instruments Of Darkness (All Of Us Are One People) and Shades Of Paranoimia were both taken from that very film.

Following the interest in the album Jeczalik told Outside World, a ZTT fanzine, that he and Langan had travelled to Cuba to find source material after they had both discussed reforming the group with Dudley, but in the end nothing ever became of it.

After the licensing of the ZTT recordings had expired on The Best Of The Art Of Noise, China Records decided to replace the tracks Beat Box, Moments In Love, Close (To The Edit) with Yebo!, Instruments Of Darkness (All Of Us Are One People) & Robinson Crusoe and issued a new The Best Of The Art Of Noise album in 1992. The CD and cassette ran for around 33 minutes long as non of the 12” versions were included, except for a limited edition containing both 7” & 12” versions. In the same year yet another two compilations were issued in Germany, The Best Of The Art Of Noise: Art Works 12” and The Best Of The Art Of Noise – The Art Of Love. The latter was more or less The Ambient Collection with some tracks removed and replaced with other tracks like One Earth & E.F.L. March 1995 saw China Records issue another remix, Yebo (Ollie J and Arkarna Remixes) before reissuing Kiss with different B-sides.

In 1996 China Records issued yet another remix album entitled The Drum And Bass Collection. The only tracks on the album that were recognisable as Art of Noise were Something Always Happens and Camilla. The album was aimed at the drum and bass fraternity and reduced the group’s music to a minimum. Not stopping there, the record label released yet another compilation in the form of State Of The Art containing The Ambient Collection, The FON Mixes and The Drum And Bass Collection. China Records issued no other Art of Noise items after that release and the label became defunct after it was swallowed up by the American giant, Warner Bros.

THE ZTT YEARS 1997 - 2000

In 1997 Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn and Paul Morley teamed up as The Image Of A Group along with Lol Creme of 10cc & Godley & Creme fame.Work began on an album called Balance – Music For The Eye and was completed in 1998. The album mixed up various genres from drum & bass to Claude Debussy. An arrangement was made with the now retired JJ Jeczalik to use the Art of Noise name and before the album was due to be released, Horn started the album again and it was finally released as The Seduction Of Claude Debussy in 1999 with narration by John Hurt. ZTT and tested the waters in 1998 with a 12” promo only entitled Dream On With The Art Of Noise All Mixed Up In Bed With Way Out West. Two weeks before the album was released, the first proper Art of Noise single for ten years entitled Metaforce [UK: #53] with rap legend Rakim was issued. Vocalists Sally Bradshaw, Donna Lewis and Carol Kenyon also appeared on the album alongside Hurt’s narration of the ‘story’ of Claude Debussy in a similar way to Richard Burton’s narration on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds.

It was very different from what had gone before.

The group played live in the USA before playing live in London where they performed most of The Seduction Of Claude Debussy long player along with Beat Box, Close (To The Edit), Moments In Love and Peter Gunn, the only track from the China Records period. A remix album entitled Reduction was released, packaged with The Seduction Of Claude Debussy and later available as a separate item before it was deleted. Art of Noise also released two 5.1 surround sound SACDs in 2004, the compilation "Daft" and Reconstructed…For Your Listening Pleasure, the soundtrack to their 2002 Into Vision DVD made up of performances from The Seduction Of Claude Debussy shows. Once again Art of Noise had gone their separate ways until 2004 where Dudley, Horn, Creme and Paul Robinson along with Alan White from Yes performed Close (To The Edit) at the Prince’s Trust Concert – Produced By Trevor Horn.

THE ARCHIVES

2004 saw the release of an Art of Noise album with a difference entitled The Abduction Of The Art Of Noise, the difference being that the group didn’t appear on it as it was an album of cover versions from the Art of Noise’s back catalogue. The album featured Chi2, Trafik feat. Rachel Lambert, BitTonic & si-cuut.db. The track that got the most interest by fans was Beat Box covered by Art of Silence (a.k.a. JJ Jeczalik). Art of Noise fan, journalist and ZTT’s curator Ian Peel devised the project and released it on the Iris Light Records/Karvavena labels.

The same curator then turned to the ZTT archive to produce a four CD box set in 2006 entitled And What Have You Done With My Body, God?, compiled of demos and unreleased versions that made up their debut album (Who’s Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! That set also included a book with interviews from Jeczalik, Langan, Dudley, Horn and Morley. The set got rave reviews and in addition to that, the first ZTT podcast was produced entitled Episode One - The Art Of Noise in early 2007 containing the original interviews that were used in making of the box set’s book, along with an exclusive version of Moments In Love.

In early 2010 it was announced that Peel was back in the archive, putting together a new compilation entitled Legacy before a name change to Influence: Hits, Singles, Moments, Treasures… This time digging out recordings from both the ZTT & China Records back catalogues and producing a new best of… album featuring all the hits and soundtrack work including the (Theme From) The Krypton Factor. A second disc was also included containing unreleased demo and unreleased tracks from 1983 onwards including Horn & Morley’s Art & Act project and the final two tracks by Dudley & Jeczalik, with tracks from the unreleased ‘first’ album Worship and the 1998 long player Balance – Music For The Eye. Influence was released on ZTT/Slavo on 19th July 2010.

The 4th April 2011 saw the first release in the Art of Noise's rebooted back catalogue with an expanded version of Into Battle With The Art Of Noise, taking it from EP to album status as it now includes the previously unreleased Worship. ZTT/Salvo are set to follow this up with deluxe editions of AoN's ZTT albums, starting with (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! featuring the single Moments In Love that entered Billboard's Jazz Digital Songs chart in the USA in 2010 and has spent more than a year there.

WORKING TOGETHER AGAIN

April 2009 saw three of members of the Art of Noise appear at the Royal Albert Hall as ABC performed their classic album The Lexicon Of Love. At the event Dudley conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra, Horn introduced and played on some of the tracks with Langan in charge of the sound. The show was a great success and the second half was also broadcast on BBC Radio 2. They also worked together on Robbie Williams’ album Reality Killed The Video Star, while Horn and Langan worked on Escala's debut album in the same year. During the promotion for Influence in 2010, Jeczalik and Langan recorded a series of radio interviews together for BBC Radio. Will all of these collaborations with various members of the group lead to work on a new album? - Who knows? But one thing is certain, there has never been a group like them since and we may never hear another, some have tried to copy them, but non of them have never managed to achieve what Art of Noise did, change the face of music and how records are made.