Music Group - The Art Of Noise

Art Of Noise, also known as The Art Of Noise are one of those music groups that have become influential on the electronic music scene over the last 25 years, although not as much as the grandfathers of Electronica, Kraftwerk - A Music group formed with engineer/producer Gary Langan, programmer JJ Jeczalik, along with arranger Anne Dudley, producer Producer Trevor Horn and music journalist Paul Morley, quite an eclectic group to create music back in 1983.

Inspiration came from two sources, firstly from an essay written by futurist Luigi Russolo, called The Art Of Noises, secondly from the advent of the Fairlight CMI sampler, an electronic musical instrument invented in Australia that Horn was reportedly among the first to purchase.

For the first few years, even though it was a long term side project for many of it's members, they maintained a faceless non-group approach, so many fans of the time, didn't know how many members or what instruments (if any) were used.

Their flavour of music is similar in nature to artists and groups such as Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre, Yes, Mike Oldfield.

Much of their music was obtained through using 'samples', using instrument or electronic sounds that have short recordings and then are played continuously and tweaked or altered until the desired 'riff' is achieved.

The group achieved a few mainstream hits with 'Peter Gunn' featuring Guitar Legend Dwayne Eddy for the Dragnet film with Tom Hanks and Dan Akroyd. Paranomia with a video clip featuring teh computer character Max Headroom, and a version of Prince's song Kiss, sung by Tom Jones. Beatbox was a huge underground hit with hip hoppers and dance clubs, and for those that remember, it was used at the beginning of the seconddance battle in the film 'Breakin' featuring Ice T as the rapper.

In the Youtube clip below, a 'remixed' version of the song Beatbox can be heard from the opening to about the 1:47 minute mark, this is also the only Art Of Noise song I have heard that has a musical artist actually lay a few rap lyrics to.

The Art Of Noise released the following 5 Albums;

• Who's Afraid Of The Art Of Noise? (1984 )
• Invisible Silence (1986 )
• In No Sense? Nonsense! ( 1987 )
• Below The Waste (1989 )
• The Seduction Of Claude Debaussy ( 1999 )

Art Of Noise material has also over the years, been remixed with other songs, have been sampled themselves, and there are a few compilation and remix albums, some of the best known include, The Fon Mixes ( 1991 ), The Ambient Collection ( 1990 ) and The Abduction Of The Art Of Noise ( 2003 )

The Art Of Noise has been referred as artists who performed Synth-Pop, Electronica, Ambient, Synth Rock, Alternative, and most likely a few other music genres I've not heard about. At the end of the day, it is still music, appreciated by some, not quite their cup of tea by others.

They have influenced and also collarboated with music talents such as Ice T, The Prodigy, Malcolm McLaren & Duane Eddy