Art Of Noise, The ‎– (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise!

This album is perhaps one of the most understated and pivotal moments in the birth of electronic music/dance music in the early eighties, and music history rightly owes a credence to their experimentalism. Contains the amazing and beautiful ‘Moments in love’ and the commercially successful ear bashing sounds of ‘Close to the edit’, and ‘Beatbox’.

This lp is one of the cornerstones of modern electronic music – no matter what genre you currently obsess about the chances are that somewhere in its history a massive debt was incurred to the sheer lunacy of The Art of Noise.

In many ways AON represent the elephant in the room, a towering presence which is so often overlooked not because of its failings but because of its self depreciating genius.

If you talk about electronic music with any self respecting discogs geek for long enough it would be almost impossible for them not to mention the Germanic overlords of the genre ‘Kraftwerk’ – their poe faced spectre looms large like a building site crane over techno city. The AON however could just as easily lay claim to the eclectic plethora of electronic styles born in the UK since 1981.

If Kraftwerk are accepted as the calculating robotic face of Teutonic beats and bleeps then surely AON personify the eccentric English gentleman tinkering in his shed and occasionally popping outside to exclaim eureka!

The eccentric nature of the album is best explained by comparing two of its best known tracks – ‘Moments in love’ and ‘Close to the edit’.

The first is subtle, delicate and beautifully paced with gentle breathy vocals barely communicating with the listener after being deliberatly drowned out in the mix.

The second is a barnstorming slice of Edward Lear influenced nonsense poetry, brazen fart samples, a car ignition sounds and the kind of hyperactive bass line that swerved out of fashion at some point in the mid eighties never to return.

These two songs mark opposite ends of the AON spectrum – somewhere in the middle you will find samples as diverse as cuban revolutionary speeches(on ‘Whos afraid’)and a monumental church organ (on ‘Momento’) which gatecrashes a quirky sound montage to leave the casual listener scratching their head in confusion.

If nothing else this LP should held up as a masterclass in 80’s production. It may have started life as producer Trevor Horns studio folly but for me and countless others from Electro B-boys to Hardcore Ravers it opened a door to sounds that simply didn’t exist a year or so beforehand.

Sheer bloody genius as they say in the home counties - 'a time to hear' indeed.