Third Benge collaboration bears rewarding remixes, revisits and new recordings
8/10
It's difficult to imagine a time when Dennis Leigh's star didn't shine as brightly as it has done of late - perhaps the final 'pop' album In Mysterious Ways, issued in 1985, could have heralded the beginning of the end of his nom-de-plume John Foxx's music-career, at least until the mid-'90s when he returned to form a partnership with Louis Gordon to create a swathe of harsher, colder synth-pop albums. Thankfully it didn't - In the 21st-century, at 64, Foxx is currently exuding the kind of youthful spunk typical of an eager teenager giddy after his completing his first mixtape, certainly more than most of his fawning (and inferior) hipster-peers. He is certainly making up for that lost ground in the '90s with The Maths.
While collaborations are nothing new in the Foxx canon, his most recent albums suggest that there is still considerable life in the old format yet. More importantly, there is life in John Foxx. After a dose of ambient albums recorded with the likes of Harold Budd, Steve Jansen and Robin Guthrie, his chosen sparring studio-partner this time around has been electro-geek and synth-hoarding Benge, who just may happen to have more old analogue and antique machinery stashed away in his hive than all the makers of the devices on show here - that's if the likes of Korg, Crumar and Simmons have ever bothered with such practice. The results across the previous Maths albums have been at best astonishing, at worst, well, still pretty damned good - opening album Interplay was nothing short of perfect, while the following In The Shape of Things revealed the duo's experimental oeuvre and an uncompromising bent that, in places, felt like works in progress.
For this third album, Foxx and Benge have rounded up familiar guests' contributions, unearthed more remixes and harvested some unreleased interludes and new compositions. Highlights include the recent 7" single and title-track (recorded with The Soft Moon), a glorious re-reading of Falling Star with Gazelle Twin, the crepuscular Only Lovers Left Alive and the previously-issued Pink Floyd tribute Have a Cigar, which isn't as much a travesty as Scissor Sisters' mauling of Comfortably Numb some years back - it is a highly-credible triumph, in fact.
Matthew Dear, Tara Busch and Xeno and Oaklander are present on another handful of songs, including two more versions of Talk, while the best short tracks include the motorik Cloud Choreography and the opening Personal Magnetism. Special mention for Gazelle Twin (again), who turn in another fine piece in Changelings prompting me to suggest perhaps they and the Maths should all convene to make an album in the future - but that's another chapter.
For now, this is another gratifying, refreshing and beautifully-packaged anthology of this pair's take on mechanized romanticism. Evidence is evidently splendid.
To buy this album head to Townsend here or Amazon
For information about John Foxx-related shows and events, head to Allgigs here
And at the same site is an exclusive interview with John just after his 2010 Roundhouse performance here
8/10
While collaborations are nothing new in the Foxx canon, his most recent albums suggest that there is still considerable life in the old format yet. More importantly, there is life in John Foxx. After a dose of ambient albums recorded with the likes of Harold Budd, Steve Jansen and Robin Guthrie, his chosen sparring studio-partner this time around has been electro-geek and synth-hoarding Benge, who just may happen to have more old analogue and antique machinery stashed away in his hive than all the makers of the devices on show here - that's if the likes of Korg, Crumar and Simmons have ever bothered with such practice. The results across the previous Maths albums have been at best astonishing, at worst, well, still pretty damned good - opening album Interplay was nothing short of perfect, while the following In The Shape of Things revealed the duo's experimental oeuvre and an uncompromising bent that, in places, felt like works in progress.
For this third album, Foxx and Benge have rounded up familiar guests' contributions, unearthed more remixes and harvested some unreleased interludes and new compositions. Highlights include the recent 7" single and title-track (recorded with The Soft Moon), a glorious re-reading of Falling Star with Gazelle Twin, the crepuscular Only Lovers Left Alive and the previously-issued Pink Floyd tribute Have a Cigar, which isn't as much a travesty as Scissor Sisters' mauling of Comfortably Numb some years back - it is a highly-credible triumph, in fact.
Matthew Dear, Tara Busch and Xeno and Oaklander are present on another handful of songs, including two more versions of Talk, while the best short tracks include the motorik Cloud Choreography and the opening Personal Magnetism. Special mention for Gazelle Twin (again), who turn in another fine piece in Changelings prompting me to suggest perhaps they and the Maths should all convene to make an album in the future - but that's another chapter.
For now, this is another gratifying, refreshing and beautifully-packaged anthology of this pair's take on mechanized romanticism. Evidence is evidently splendid.
To buy this album head to Townsend here or Amazon
For information about John Foxx-related shows and events, head to Allgigs here
And at the same site is an exclusive interview with John just after his 2010 Roundhouse performance here