In Mysterious Ways is a 1985 album by John Foxx

John Foxx

John Foxx is an English singer, artist, photographer and teacher. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox before being replaced by Midge Ure, when he left to embark on a solo career in 1979...

, the follow-up to his album The Golden Section

The Golden Section

The Golden Section is a 1983 album by English musician John Foxx. A progression from the sound of The Garden , Foxx called The Golden Section "a roots check: Beatles, Church music, Psychedelia, The Shadows, The Floyd, The Velvets, Roy Orbison, Kraftwerk, and cheap pre-electro Europop".The album was...

, released two years previously. It features some of the highly romantic

Neo-romanticism

The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...

 style similar to 1981's The Garden

The Garden (John Foxx album)

The Garden is a 1981 album by John Foxx, the follow-up to his debut solo album Metamatic, released the previous year. However its instrumentation and highly romantic style is more comparable to Systems of Romance, his last album with former band Ultravox, released in 1978.-Production and style:The...

 album, although in many ways lacking the finesse of the earlier record. Completely missing from this recording is all association with what Foxx was known for, be it Punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

, Art Rock, English-style Krautrock

Krautrock

Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...

, Electropop or New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

.

The lyrics are of discovery and rediscovery and there is lots of vibrato

Vibrato

Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...

-laden organ playing on this record. There are acoustic guitars, mid-1980s home studio-sounding rhythm machines, live drums and glimpses of Cathedral Oceans

Cathedral Oceans

Cathedral Oceans is an album of ambient music by John Foxx, released in 1997. Alongside Shifting City released on the same day, it marked Foxx's return to the music scene after an absence of seven years. It was also his first solo album since 1985's In Mysterious Ways...

-style ambient music

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 in places—particularly in the "Enter The Angel" reprise. Although Cathedral Oceans wasn't released until 12 years later, Foxx has stated he started working on the material as early as 1983.

"Morning Glory" is a long, two-chord meditation with a Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

 delivery. "This Side Of Paradise" has a late-seventies Ultravox

Ultravox

Ultravox is a British New Wave rock band. They were one of the primary exponents of the British electronic pop music movement of the late 1970s/early 1980s. The band was particularly associated with the New Romantic and New Wave movements....

 feel. The Foxx talk sounds almost like Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

 on "Stars On Fire", a minor hit. "Lose All Sense Of Time" is slightly like Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

 and Robin Simon's guitar additions make it Foxx-filtered. "Enter The Angel" has female backing vocalists and the effect is Girl Group

Girl group

A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...

 mid-sixties. Female vocalists are also heard on the almost Country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 ballad, "Stepping Softly". There's some familiar territory here but it's not anything else Foxx had done previously.

The cover art is in the collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

 style he had been presenting to his public since the early Ultravox! days. An expanded edition was released in 2001 and a 2CD 'deluxe edition' in 2008.

Track listing

1. "Stars On Fire" – 5:32
2. "Lose All Sense of Time" – 4:16
3. "Shine On" – 3:58
4. "Enter The Angel" – 3:04
5. "In Mysterious Ways" – 5:00
6. "What Kind of a Girl" – 4:40
7. "This Side of Paradise" – 4:38
8. "Stepping Softly" – 3:56
9. "Enter The Angel II" – 2:14
10. "Morning Glory" – 5:52

2001 reissue tracklisting

1. "Stars On Fire" – 5:32
2. "Lose All Sense of Time" – 4:16
3. "What Kind of a Girl" – 4:40
4. "Shine On" – 3:58
5. "Enter The Angel" – 3:04
6. "In Mysterious Ways" – 5:00
7. "This Side of Paradise" – 4:38
8. "Stepping Softly" – 3:56
9. "Morning Glory" – 5:52
10. "Enter The Angel II" – 2:14

Bonus tracks

11. "Lumen de Lumine" – 2:36
    
12. "Hiding in Plain Sight" – 5:52
    
13. "City of Light" – 3:38
    

Disc 1

1. "Stars On Fire" – 5:32
2. "Lose All Sense of Time" – 4:16
3. "Spin Away" – 6:43
4. "Shine On" – 3:58
5. "Enter The Angel" – 3:04
6. "In Mysterious Ways" – 5:00
7. "What Kind of a Girl" – 4:40
8. "Stepping Softly" – 3:56
9. "Enter The Angel II" – 2:14
10. "Morning Glory" – 5:52

Disc 2

1. "This Side of Paradise" – 4:38
2. "Enter the Angel" (alternative version) – 3:38
3. "To Be With You" (alternative version) – 4:41
4. "And the Sky" – 4:34
5. "Magic" – 3:35
6. "Hiding in Plain Sight" – 5:51
7. "Shine On" (alternative version) – 5:03
8. "City of Light" – 3:37
9. "Lumen de Lumine" – 2:36

Personnel

• Robin Simon
  Robin Simon
  For the art historian and critic Robin Simon, editor of , see Robin JH SimonRobin Simon For the art historian and critic Robin Simon, editor of , see Robin JH SimonRobin Simon For the art historian and critic Robin Simon, editor of , see Robin JH SimonRobin Simon (born Robert Simon 12 July 1956,...
  
   - guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• Paul "Wix" Wickens - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Randy Hope-Taylor - bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• John Foxx
  John Foxx
  John Foxx is an English singer, artist, photographer and teacher. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox before being replaced by Midge Ure, when he left to embark on a solo career in 1979...
  
   - vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , keyboards
  Electronic keyboard
  An electronic keyboard is an electronic or digital keyboard instrument.The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
   (listed on several tracks as "all other instruments")
• Sadenia Reader - backing vocals
  Backing vocalist
  A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
  
  
• Peter Oxendale - keyboards
• David Levy
  David Levy
  David Levy may refer to:* David A. Levy , U.S. Representative from New York* David Benjamin Levy , American musicologist** 3673 Levy, an asteroid named in his honour* David H. Levy , Canadian astronomer and science writer...
  
  - bass
• Barry Watts - drums