Disc 3 – Rarities
(2018, Metal Beat)
The third disc in the collection is the sonic equivalent of an attic clear-out: anything contemporaneous from the period around Metamatic that hasn’t already been committed to disc goes here.
There’s a fair number of instrumentals on offer, which often feel like audio notes regarding certain moods or sonic backdrops to be used elsewhere, and in some cases hinting at future ambient works. The disc finishes up with a handful of previously-rare demos made for the original album.
THE MUSIC
The overall quixotic feel of the disc is established almost immediately with the first two tracks. The curtain rises on “A Frozen Moment” — about a minute-and-a-half of beepy-boopy synth effects, a sonic notebook of wayward sounds that would later on find homes. Here, it serves as a scene-setting appetizer for the glorious steak that is track two, “He’s a Liquid (Instrumental Dub Version).”
It’s kind of hard to imagine a John Foxx karaoke event, but here’s your chance to try your hand at it. This version includes more of the echoey whistling of the original that, with the vocals not present, somehow adds a creepier effect to this already cold-wave classic.
“Mr No (Alternative Version”) is a similar but more basic version of the track we hear on Disc 2 of this set. Like some of the additional “Early Versions” we’ll hear later on this disc (and a few of the “Alternative Versions” we heard on the last one), this feels like a demo done on Foxx’s own equipment. That said, it follows the more polished official version that eventually made it as far as being a b-side pretty closely.
We now come to a section of songs not heard on any of the previous Metamatic reissues. These are some leftover sound beds, backgrounds, tone experiments and other bits of recorded emphemera, mostly without rhythm but with a sense of chasing down a set of beautiful and/or evocative synth sounds — a kind of sonic notebook that he thought might come in handy later.
We start with “The Uranium Committee.” The usual low-hum drone runs for a bit, then a cycling higher-hum wipe. This fades slowly out at the two-minute mark. It’s more like a backing sound set in search of a melody.
“A Man Alone,” however is more of a proper instrumental with a melody line, but is still mostly just synth noodling that seems to be an experiment in what sounds blend well together. This is Foxx experimenting with setting a mood before adding the beat that would drive something like this.
R2-D2 and the accompanying dark sci-fi vibe return in the aptly-titled “Terminal Zone.” This in particular would have made for some great soundtrack music in some then-future Doctor Who episode. Likewise, the fragment “Urban Code” is another mood piece of sinister machinery.
The mood lightens considerably with the melodic “A Version of You,” hinting at the romantic overtones that first showed up in the early “Like a Miracle” heard on Disc 2.
Speaking of that previous disc, we get to a proper full (albeit instrumental) song in the “Alternative Version” of “Glimmer.” The “official” version is the better of the two in my view, but both are very similar.
A synth wash drapes around the mostly-untreated piano of “Fragmentary City,” another of Foxx’s solid dreamscape soundtracks.
“Metamorphosis” is mostly some SynthFarts™ but also sounds like an early experiment with what would later become the “metal beat” sound. Listening to experimental tracks like this now, it’s helpful to recall that synths around this time had to be painstakingly hand-tweaked to produce sounds other than the pre-programmed ones.
These little recorded “workshops” are how Foxx arrived at many of the amazing sounds that finally graced the album proper, and drawings in his notebook would suggest that illustrations of the synth settings for easy re-creation were made when he was happy with what he heard.
“Approaching the Monument” is another soundscape, vaguely sound like a motorcycle revving against a backdrop of ambient low noise. It constantly threatens to turn into a further set of sounds, but never does.
The best collection of these synth experiments comes in the form of “Critical Mass,” which captures a number of key sounds — and even has some percussion! — that would later to be used to augment the songs on Metamatic.
This whole section of nerdy noodling will probably not be of interest even to most Foxx fans, but is the background research, if you will, that made the album what it became musically.
We end this section with the whimsically-titled “Alamogordo Logic,” a shorter compilation of potential synth settings.
To finish up the disc, we return to some actual pieces of music. The “Early Version” of “Touch and Go” kicks things off, in a faster but otherwise nearly-complete demo version of the song.
Foxx then moves into an almost House-like beat paired with a semi-succcessful vocal in “Miss Machinery,” a song where the vocals don’t quite work and doesn’t appear to have been developed further — despite an interesting melody — but has the great phrase “let me introduce my army.” With a bit more work, this could have made a decent b-side. It’s bursting with potential but just didn’t quite gel.
The last track is the “Early Version” demo of “No-One Driving,” remastered specifically for the White Vinyl and this version of the expanded Metamatic album.
This take is pretty awesome too, with a different opening sequence and no handclaps, some “ghost vocals” but otherwise very similar to what became the finished vocals, and exactly the same lyrics. It is, if you’ll pardon the pun, a real “high note” to end the box set on, and reminds listeners why they are fans of Foxx in the first place.
THE POSTSCRIPT
If you’ve been obsessed with the original album since it came out half a lifetime ago (!), you will want to own this box set, even the more experimental Disc 3. If you’re a more casual fan who enjoyed Metamatic but may have another Foxx solo album as your favourite, the 2007 Edsel 2CD reissue will probably tide you over very well — it has many but not quite all of the highlights found here.
If you really need all the “Alternative” and “Early” versions, though, and are willing to slog through some unfinished bits, you will want this much-superior 3CD version from 2018. The CD scores over any previous vinyl version (even if you prefer the latter format over the former) by way of the art cards, silvertone booklet, and the possibility of the autographed card.
Next time: The Neasden Queen of Soul!
The Chasbah 