Metamatic
Encyclopedia
Metamatic is an album by John Foxx
, released in 1980. It was his first solo album following his split with Ultravox
the previous year. A departure from the textured mix of synthesizer
s and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance
, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged electronica
was more akin to Kraftwerk
's The Man-Machine
(1978), Gary Numan
's The Pleasure Principle
(1979), and early Human League
. The name 'Metamatic' comes from a painting machine by kinetic art
ist Jean Tinguely
, first exhibited at the Paris
Biennial in 1959.
", Metamatic was engineered by then-unknown Gareth Jones
. Foxx's electronic equipment included ARP Odyssey
, an Elka
'String Machine' and a Roland CR-78
drum machine
. His keyboard skills were rudimentary at the time, and several of the synth parts were played for him by John Wesley-Barker.
Regarding the album's air of clinical artiness, Foxx later confessed to "reading too much J.G. Ballard" and "imagining I was the Marcel Duchamp
of electropop". Half a dozen tracks referenced automobiles or motorways, most obviously "Underpass" and "No-One Driving". Foxx re-worked the former track as "Overpass" on the live Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour in 1998 (reissued in 2002 as the second of a 2-disc set, The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour); he also re-used its distinctive riff for the track "Invisible Women" on 2001's Pleasures of Electricity with Louis Gordon. The song "He's a Liquid" was inspired by a still from a Japanese horror film depicting a suit draped across a chair in such a way as to suggest that the wearer had liquified; Foxx's lyrics also alluded to the 'fluidity' of human relationships. The final track, "Touch and Go", exhibited psychedelic
touches that would increasingly recur in his 1980s work.
Foxx had performed "He's a Liquid" and "Touch and Go" live with Ultravox before leaving the band in 1979. Drummer Warren Cann
, for one, appeared to consider them to be Ultravox, rather than John Foxx, numbers and noted that the band did not receive any credit for them on Metamatic. Notwithstanding, when Ultravox adapted the tune from "Touch and Go" for the song "Mr X" on Vienna (1980), their first album following Foxx's departure, Foxx was not credited.
"Underpass" was released as an edited single a week before the album (length: 3:18), making #35 in the UK charts and appearing on a number of electropop compilations of the time. Its B-side was a non-album instrumental, "Film One". In March 1980 a remix of "No-One Driving" was released with three other non-album tracks, "Glimmer", "This City" and "Mr No", reaching #32.
In June 1980, Foxx released a single with new songs on both sides, "Burning Car
" b/w "20th Century", making #35. He issued one more single-only release in October 1980, the transitional "Miles Away
" b/w "A Long Time", which provided a foretaste of the more fully produced sound of his next album, The Garden
(1981). All these non-album tracks have appeared on various John Foxx compilations and reissues of Metamatic; the 1993 CD version of the album also included "Young Love", a previously unreleased track recorded in 1979. A two-CD reissue of the album was released in September 2007 that collected most Metamatic-era music, plus previously unavailable tracks, onto one bonus CD.
For many years Metamatics stark electronic sound made it something of an aberration in the John Foxx catalogue. However Foxx's recent material with Louis Gordon, Shifting City, Pleasures of Electricity and Crash and Burn, bear more resemblance to the album than to his subsequent 1980s releases. Foxx's record label and his official website are also named Metamatic.
.
Keyboards used on the album include the Minimoog
, ARP Odyssey
, clavinet
, piano
, Farfisa
string synth, and Hammond organ
.
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...
, released in 1980. It was his first solo album following his split with 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....
the previous year. A departure from the textured mix of synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance
Systems of Romance
Systems of Romance, released on 8 September 1978, is the third album by British band Ultravox...
, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
was more akin to Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
's The Man-Machine
The Man-Machine
The Man-Machine is the seventh studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in May 1978. It contains the song "The Model" which was a chart-topping single in the UK in 1982....
(1978), Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
's The Pleasure Principle
The Pleasure Principle (Gary Numan album)
The Pleasure Principle is the third studio album, and debut album under his own name, by electronic music pioneer Gary Numan, released in 1979...
(1979), and early Human League
The Human League
The Human League are an English electronic New Wave band formed in Sheffield in 1977. They achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s and have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success throughout the 1980s up to the present day.The only constant...
. The name 'Metamatic' comes from a painting machine by kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
ist Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
, first exhibited at the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
Biennial in 1959.
Production and style
Recorded in what the composer described as "an eight-track cupboard in IslingtonIslington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
", Metamatic was engineered by then-unknown Gareth Jones
Gareth Jones (music producer)
Gareth Jones is an English music producer and engineer notable for working with Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, Wire and Erasure.-Background:Gareth Jones is married and currently living in North London....
. Foxx's electronic equipment included ARP Odyssey
ARP Odyssey
The ARP Odyssey was an analog synthesizer introduced in 1972. Responding to pressure from Moog Music to create a portable, affordable "performance" synthesizer, ARP scaled down its popular 2600 synthesizer and created the Odyssey, which became the best-selling synthesizer they made.The Odyssey is...
, an Elka
Elka
ELKA or Elka may refer to one of the following:*An Italian Synthesizer manufacturer, now defunct. Notable units include; ELKA Synthex, ELKA Rhapsody, ELKA X-55, and the ELKA MKxx series of MIDI controllers . Notable customers include Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and, Supertramp...
'String Machine' and a Roland CR-78
Roland CR-78
The Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 is a drum machine launched in 1978. Although primitive by today's standards, the CR-78 represented an important advance in drum machine technology at the time...
drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
. His keyboard skills were rudimentary at the time, and several of the synth parts were played for him by John Wesley-Barker.
Regarding the album's air of clinical artiness, Foxx later confessed to "reading too much J.G. Ballard" and "imagining I was the Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
of electropop". Half a dozen tracks referenced automobiles or motorways, most obviously "Underpass" and "No-One Driving". Foxx re-worked the former track as "Overpass" on the live Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour in 1998 (reissued in 2002 as the second of a 2-disc set, The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour); he also re-used its distinctive riff for the track "Invisible Women" on 2001's Pleasures of Electricity with Louis Gordon. The song "He's a Liquid" was inspired by a still from a Japanese horror film depicting a suit draped across a chair in such a way as to suggest that the wearer had liquified; Foxx's lyrics also alluded to the 'fluidity' of human relationships. The final track, "Touch and Go", exhibited psychedelic
Psychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
touches that would increasingly recur in his 1980s work.
Foxx had performed "He's a Liquid" and "Touch and Go" live with Ultravox before leaving the band in 1979. Drummer Warren Cann
Warren Cann
Warren Reginald Cann is a drummer and drum machine programmer, best known as a member of the British New Wave band Ultravox.-Early life:...
, for one, appeared to consider them to be Ultravox, rather than John Foxx, numbers and noted that the band did not receive any credit for them on Metamatic. Notwithstanding, when Ultravox adapted the tune from "Touch and Go" for the song "Mr X" on Vienna (1980), their first album following Foxx's departure, Foxx was not credited.
Release and aftermath
Metamatic spent seven weeks in the UK charts, peaking at #18. Though Foxx was accused in some quarters at the time of imitating Gary Numan – ironically in light of the inspiration Numan publicly admitted to taking from the Foxx-led Ultravox – the album was generally well received by critics and is still cited as his most influential solo release."Underpass" was released as an edited single a week before the album (length: 3:18), making #35 in the UK charts and appearing on a number of electropop compilations of the time. Its B-side was a non-album instrumental, "Film One". In March 1980 a remix of "No-One Driving" was released with three other non-album tracks, "Glimmer", "This City" and "Mr No", reaching #32.
In June 1980, Foxx released a single with new songs on both sides, "Burning Car
Burning Car
"Burning Car" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in 1980. It was his third solo single, following "Underpass" and "No-One Driving" earlier in the year. The track was not included on Foxx's debut solo album Metamatic, post-dating its January 1980 release, but has been included as a bonus...
" b/w "20th Century", making #35. He issued one more single-only release in October 1980, the transitional "Miles Away
Miles Away (song)
"Miles Away" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in October 1980. It was his fourth solo single, following "Burning Car" in July that year...
" b/w "A Long Time", which provided a foretaste of the more fully produced sound of his next album, 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...
(1981). All these non-album tracks have appeared on various John Foxx compilations and reissues of Metamatic; the 1993 CD version of the album also included "Young Love", a previously unreleased track recorded in 1979. A two-CD reissue of the album was released in September 2007 that collected most Metamatic-era music, plus previously unavailable tracks, onto one bonus CD.
For many years Metamatics stark electronic sound made it something of an aberration in the John Foxx catalogue. However Foxx's recent material with Louis Gordon, Shifting City, Pleasures of Electricity and Crash and Burn, bear more resemblance to the album than to his subsequent 1980s releases. Foxx's record label and his official website are also named Metamatic.
Track listing
All songs written by John FoxxJohn 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...
.
- "Plaza" – 3:52
- "He's a Liquid" – 2:59
- "Underpass" – 3:53
- "Metal Beat" – 2:59
- "No-One Driving" – 3:45
- "A New Kind of Man" – 3:38
- "Blurred Girl" – 4:16
- "030" – 3:15
- "Tidal Wave" – 4:14
- "Touch and Go" – 5:33
1993 reissue bonus tracks
- "Young Love" – 3:10
- "Film One" – 3:58
- "20th Century" – 3:06
- "Miles AwayMiles Away (song)"Miles Away" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in October 1980. It was his fourth solo single, following "Burning Car" in July that year...
" – 3:17 - "A Long Time" – 3:49
- "Swimmer 1" – 4:06
2001 reissue bonus tracks
- "Film One" – 3:58
- "Glimmer" – 3:33
- "Mr. No" – 3:14
- "This City" – 3:03
- "20th Century" – 3:06
- "Burning CarBurning Car"Burning Car" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in 1980. It was his third solo single, following "Underpass" and "No-One Driving" earlier in the year. The track was not included on Foxx's debut solo album Metamatic, post-dating its January 1980 release, but has been included as a bonus...
" – 3:12 - "Miles Away" – 3:17
2007 reissue bonus disc
- "Film One"
- "This City"
- "To Be With You"
- "Cinemascope"
- "Burning Car"
- "Glimmer"
- "Mr No"
- "Young Love"
- "20th Century"
- "My Face"
- "Like a Miracle" (alternative version)
- "A New Kind of Man" (alternative version)
- "He's a Liquid" (alternative version)
- "To Be With You" and "Cinemascope" are "sampled and re-assembled from ideas and fragments found on cassette using only analogue gear"
Personnel
- John FoxxJohn FoxxJohn 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, rhythm machinesDrum machineA drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
(mainly Roland CR-78Roland CR-78The Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 is a drum machine launched in 1978. Although primitive by today's standards, the CR-78 represented an important advance in drum machine technology at the time...
), synthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s - John Wesley Barker – additional synthesizers
- Jake Durant – additional bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Gareth JonesGareth Jones (music producer)Gareth Jones is an English music producer and engineer notable for working with Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, Wire and Erasure.-Background:Gareth Jones is married and currently living in North London....
– engineer
Keyboards used on the album include the Minimoog
Minimoog
The Minimoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer, invented by Bill Hemsath and Robert Moog. It was released in 1970 by R.A. Moog Inc. , and production was stopped in 1981. It was re-designed by Robert Moog in 2002 and released as Minimoog Voyager.The Minimoog was designed in response to the use of...
, ARP Odyssey
ARP Odyssey
The ARP Odyssey was an analog synthesizer introduced in 1972. Responding to pressure from Moog Music to create a portable, affordable "performance" synthesizer, ARP scaled down its popular 2600 synthesizer and created the Odyssey, which became the best-selling synthesizer they made.The Odyssey is...
, clavinet
Clavinet
A Clavinet is an electrically amplified keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, Farfisa
Farfisa
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
string synth, and Hammond organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
.