A Time For Fear: ART OF NOISE, R.I.P? by Ian Peel The Art Of Noise - Anne Dudley and JJ Jeczalik - have split, for the forseeable future. Cracks in the Noise-works started to become visible with the release of their most recent album, last Autumn's "The Ambient Collection", which Anne freely admits they had nothing to do with. All tracks were reworks/medleys by ace remixer Youth, ex of Killing Joke. Two days before the split was announced she gave an interview to Mix magazine and stated: "To be honest we've had nothing to do with this Ambient album, we didn't do anything new for it." Doing the publicity rounds for her LP with Jaz Coleman, Anne Dudley had chance to elaborate on the split saying the Art Of Noise had "reached the end of their useful life" ('Select', Dec. '90). JJ Jeczalik on the other hand has said little. He offered his side of the story to OUTSIDE WORLD: "What happens in these situations normally is people get bored with each other and they stop working with each other and then eventually they work with each other again after several years when they discover that it wasn't that bad after all!" Apparently the split was amicable and JJ and Anne are regularly in touch regarding their latest projects. "... One has to go out and pursue new roots just to clean out the brain." Adrian Sear, the manager of the China Records - AoN's former label, who still hold the rights to the name - says there's "no real reason" why they couldn't reform. JJ agrees, but regarding a time scale adds "no no we've only just split, come on!" Mr Jeczalik has since left the China label and is working on an album with seminal guitarist Alvin Lee, formerly of Ten Years After. Formed in 1966 (10 years after the rock'n'roll explosion), TYA are best known for their 11 minute epic "I'm Going Home", an excellent show-case for Alvin's fast and furious guitar playing, which they aired at August '69s Woodstock festival. Between then and 1971 the band released four classic albums, all of which went Top 10 - "Stonehenge", "Sssh", "Cricklewood Green" and "Watt". In '73 they split and Alvin Lee, who *was* Ten Years After to most, went on to form Alvin Lee adn Co., Ten Years Later and record solo albums. Apparently JJ's highly pleased to be working with a character of Alvin's background: "I was always the one in the Art Of Noise bringing in the rock influences and guitars and everything. So if I hadn't been involved with keyboards, I would have probably been a very bad guitarist so it's worked out very nicely to work with a very good one!" The project was started last year and JJ says it's "bearing rather good fruit at the moment", but as for a release date he says "It's a rather lengthy project so it'll be finished when it's finished. It's one of those." Meanwhile, Anne Dudley has just produced a single with ex-Art Of Noise man Gary Langan entitled "Strangers In The Rain" from the Francis Raffelli musical "Children Of Eden", and her collaboration with Jaz Coleman is explored elsewhere in this issue. The China label have severed links with Polydor and become an independent entity. Their roster of eight artists includes Loud who recently supported Killing Joke on tour, and Labi Sifre, whose new album is due out soon. Alvin and JJ are currently negoatiating with a handful of labels for the release of their album, which will probably be American-based. When it is ready, OUTSIDE WORLD readers will be among the first to know. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ART OF NOISE "Yet another highly dismissive critique / obituary" by Richard Smith For anyone who's ever read the sleevenotes of the one and only ZTT / Art Of Noise CD, "Daft", it's easy to see just what the label's view was of the group's departure from the stable. Feelings of anger that basically a major contributor to its income had been lost mixed with pity, disgust and more than the slightest knowing smile. "We told you so", the notes seemed to say, "this is what happens in the nasty world of pop." Montreux, TOTP, even the odd un-blurred photo-sessions... AoN seemed to be willingly embracing nearly all ZTT paradoxically stood for commercialism, success, *money*. However, if the trained ear, eye and attitude casts a critical pen over the post-1984 noise-works we find the knowing smiles justified: those clever people at Basing Street said this would happen, and blow me, it has. For what the Eddy Of Noise lacked was *wit*. Sure, Max Of Noise was *fun*, but not wit. "Who's Afraid...?", the album that genuinely made a statement on pop while saying so little, remains the group's finest and only contribution to the worlds of experimentation, dance innovation, ambience, sophistication. Any album that could do all that without even an interview was really getting somewhere, saying something. And yeah, it was fun too. What followed can be studied with less grandeur, as befits its content. "Legs" was thankfully unscarred by the drums that were to mar later releases (I'm sure they were only there for one reason anyway: "remember us? they say, dum dum, yeah, you know us, we're off that record a year or so back!" so the average record buyer dusts down their copy of "Close (To The Edit)", remembers them, and still decides not to buy "Dragnet '88". And why? It wasn't worth buying!), but the second album was disappointing. It had all been said before. "Instruments Of Darkness" was "A Time For Fear", "Camilla" was "Moments In Love" and so on. Duane and Max hit the charts, but the release and failure of "Legacy" only proved AoN had dug their own grave... innovators turned novelty band. ZTT had the satisfaction of knowing that they were right, even if they were penniless. It was the principle that mattered in those days. Meanwhile, rock was further embraced. A gig, a live LP (when was the last time you played "ReWorks.."?), a tune to a naff US movie (and what's worse, a flop at that). The imagination returned a little on "In No Sense? Nonsense!", a genuine desire to grasp at the innovation of the past was apparent, and some good tracks emerged ("E.F.L", "One Earth"...). But by now, it was really too late: AoN found themselves left behind and in the bargain- bins when they should have been at the fore-front of the expanding house scene. "The Best Of..." confirmed their status as a novelty-single band only. "Art Of Love" (an excellent track when taken out of its context as an epitaph) showed that if they couldn't do it themselves anymore, someone else could and with better results too, and "The Ambient Collection" should have been done under the Trades Description Act. Not particularly ambient, certainly not house, it was packed with the bits that ruined "In No Sense?..."'s continuity and made it such a trial to listen to. If only Anne had spoken out earlier about her lack of interest. So many plastic AoN records, so few resources... And I haven't even mentioned "Below the Waste"... Maybe this is too harsh. All four proper albums are still better efforts than most of at the exciting, even if the opposite occured. Eno's philosophy was change through repetition - AoN just stuck to the latter part of the idea. Nothing changes the fact that the ZTT moments were magical, the three singles seminal and commercial, rare sleeping partners. Humanitarians would undoubtedly come down in Dudley/Jeczalik's favour. ZTT wasn't and and probably still is not the perfect label for artists. But forget that, I'm an objective critic, I look at product only, and I conclude: if you're out to make money, do it on ZTT - let your art flourish while others reap the rewards. Besides, all the best artists were poor, weren't they? And true artists don't care about the money anyway - do they? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------