01. Galleons Of Stone
02. Dragnet
03. Fin Du Temps
04. How Rapid?
05. Opus For Four
06. Debut
07. E.F.L.
08. A Day At The Races
09. Ode To Don Jose
10. Counterpoint
11. Roundabout
12. Ransom On The Sand
13. Roller 1
14. Nothing Was Going To Stop Them Then Anyway
15. Crusoe
16. One Earth

QUOTE:

Art Of Noise first appeared to appear in 1983, with a song in their heart, a beat in their soul, and an ignition key in their hand. Formed at a time when the reverberations of punk, post-punk and new wave could still be felt, they were determined to be a different kind of group, a group that set themselves outside the then currents of fashion and style, a group that were the missing link between The Monkees and Talking Heads, Abba and Kraftwerk, Frank Zappa and The Archies. They took their name, like all the best pop groups from Soft Machine to The Velvet Underground, from a book - a book about Italian futurism. Influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Terry Riley, Miles Davis, Todd Rundgren, Marvin Gaye and Tangerine Dream, they considered themselves futurists in the sense that they were interested in the future, in making the future a better place, in the technology of the future, in turning up in the future, in sounding like they belonged in the future. At their first group meeting, on February 2nd 1983, they decided that they would never appear in their videos, they would not have a lead singer, they would never officially finish off a track, they would use technology to liberate the imagination, and they would be represented in photographs by spanners, roses and Sigmund Freud (Read into that what you will). Part studio experiment, part pop group, part time, part play, part considerate, part pioneers, part theory, part science, part art, part of the brand new hyper Zang Tuum Tumb record label, their first record 'Into Battle' (1983) was a blueprint for everything they would get up to in the years ahead. A chopped, sliced and blended mix of dance, trance, new fangled samples, pith and improvisation, it was twenty odd minutes of musical puzzles, collaged collisions and rhythmical novelty. Critics and reviewers, faced with the faint facelessness of the group, the_banging sorcery and ringing sourcelessness of the sound, hazarded guesses that the group were black Chicago House builders, or underground sonic surrealists from Berlin, or the missing link between Boney M and The Residents. In many ways, they may have been right. 'Into Battle' was seriously and playfully transformed into their first album, 'Who's Afraid Of The Art Of Noise' (1984). The album contained three songs that defined the early Art Of Noise sound - the antic fractured humour of 'Close (To The Edit)', the prototypical big beat of 'Beat Box' and the meditative might of 'Moments In Love'. Such songs ensured that Art Of Noise would head into the future: as direct and indirect influences on noisy artists from Mantronix to Moby, as a suggestion to Underworld, Daft Punk and The Prodigy how they might play at being absent and present pop stars, and of course as the musical choice Madonna made when she got married (Madonna walked down the aisle to the sound of 'Moments In Love'): The Prodigy sampled 'Close (To The Edit)' to help inspire their 'Firestarter'). On March 12th 1984, Art Of Noise had a meeting, and some members decided to see what it would be like if they became a more visible pop group. So a group that had five members then had three members: Trevor Horn and Paul Morley left, to appear behind other scenes, and Anne Dudley, Gary Langan and JJ Jeczalik disappeared into full view. The group signed to China Records, teamed up with Duane Eddy for a surfsonic version of 'Peter Gunn', and connected at the hip with Tom Jones for a hitsonic version of Prince's 'Kiss'. Their album 'In No Sense Nonsense' was greeted as an ambient classic. And then they paused. hiponline.com