THE ART OF NOISE ONLINE www.theartofnoiseonline.com

Author: Paul Johnson

Circa: March 1999

ART OF NOISE

THE REDUCTION

ZTT **

IN THE NURSERY
GROUNDLOOP
ITN **
Electronic soundtracks to movies that don't exist - porquoi?

After last year's almost-elegant homage to the works of Debussy (The Seduction Of Claude Debussy), Art Of Noise have added their after-thoughts with The Reduction - rapper Rakim, to name but one of the guests on The Seduction... is still here, still barking (mad) in cyberspace. But really they should have quit while ahead, Luckily, The Reduction comes in enticing as ever ZTT packaging (with four alternative sleeve colours - blue, pink, red and orange), plus you get The Seduction Of Claude Debussy thrown in free, so it's not all bad news, But it's another triumph of presentation over content and further proof that AON are rather less than the sum of their parts - you'd imagine a member of 10cc (Lol Creme), a superb composer/genius orchestrator (Anne Dudley), one of Britain's best-known producers (Trevor Horn) and the Machievellian Morley would be capable of more than this.

Sheffield-based In The Nursery have provided the music for numerous films (including Interview With The Vatripire and The Rainmaker) and create electronic music orchestral music. With vocals bv the Sarah Cracknell-esque Dolores Marguerite C, Groundloop is at times intensely percussive, their tunes epic yet eminently forgettable. Groundloop really is "music to make movies to" (their description): while many of these tracks might function in support of a visual image, on their own they tend towards the bland.

Paul Johnson