Single of the year: OMD - Dresden

"..set the dials to overlaod, my head is ready to explode.."

taken from the recent OMD album English Electric. Remix by John Foxx and the Maths also avilable.

One I made earlier

video: Watching A Bulding On Fire - John Foxx And The Maths
Here's a video I started putting together some time ago and finally got round to finishing off. It's a mixture of footage from Truffaut's film adaption of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and John Foxx's video for He's A Liquid, from 1980.
For those who don't know, Bradbury's novel is a story set in the not too distant future, where books are basically banned off the face of the earth and any that are found have to be burned, and those responsible for reading or keeping them duly punished. The story follows the relationship between 'fireman' Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) and his relationship with Clarisse McClellan, played by the ever gorgeous Julie Christie. 451°F is the temperature at which book paper burns. Enough said.

In making my video, the 'fire' association between the film and the song is obvious, although of course the former is more about books as opposed to buildings. The line "someone is in the room", instantly reminded me of the original Foxx video and, like most of the Maths album, the song has much of the sounds of Metamatic so the Liquid video sequence fitted like a glove, also given the man meets woman scenario as Foxx's voice interchanges with that of Mira Aroyo of Ladytron on Watching, who co-wrote it.
I had considered using the excellent new remix of Watching A Building On Fire, but it's longer and has a slightly different structure so would've meant re-doing the whole thing.

Here's the video - and the song. It's quite long but please stick with it til the end if only to see the scene as sampled below:.

original version of Watching A Building On Fire available here
original video of He's A Liquid here

Advanced Maths - 3

The John Foxx & The Maths tour kicked off last night from the intimate surroundings of the Assembly Rooms in Leamington Spa. The line-up of John Foxx, Benge, Hannah Peel and Serafina Steer suffered a few first-night nerves (according to Brigid Burke's excellent blog posting) but with a track-list which included some of Foxx's electro-classics from Metamatic (No One Driving, Underpass, Plaza, Burning Car, He's a Liquid), others from his Ultravox days (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Dislocation, Just For a Moment) and selected new tracks from the cracking 2011 album Interplay (Summerland, Evergreen, The Good Shadow, Catwalk), they couldn't really go wrong, and indeed they didn't.
The band and entourage are already on their way to Poland to play at the Unsound Festival in Cracow. Chris & Cosey ex of Throbbing Gristle also on the bill. The Maths' UK tour resumes next Thursday in Bristol.

Respected on-line music magazine The Quietus has uploaded a new JF & Maths track Where You End and I Begin feat. Tara Busch, who is the support act on most of the tour. (soundcloud link). The track comes from the new album The Shape of Things, available at gigs only for now.


Here's video footage of He's a Liquid performed at Leamington Spa last night, as filmed by Mateybloke who also took some rather good photos. (wonder what Mr B. Currie makes of the violin playing!)

Advanced Maths Pt. 2

More updates on the John Foxx front. News is now out of a new double CD album by the Man and his Maths, a matter of months after the release of the debut Interplay.
The Shape of Things will be on limited release at the upcoming JF&M live shows and via the official website. It's a double disc set with new tracks on the first disc and a series of remixes of Interplay faves on the second. Although coming out so close to its predecessor, it's said that The Shape of Things will be "rougher and more experimental than Interplay". Crumbs!
As a taster, here's Talk also available to download via Artrockertv / soundcloud here- apparently it features Electro Harmonix DRM16 drum machine, and the Moog and Paia modular synths, so there.

Here it is in youtube form, as uploaded by polterter

Advanced Maths Pt. 1

pic.: it's full of stars

Much fervent activity in the John Foxx & The Maths camp these days as the great man and his band prepare for their live performances, and artrocker.tv run a special John Foxx week. Phew! Rock n roll!
But more of that later as the goodies keep rolling in and Lost in Music tries hard to keep a-breast (oo-er missus!).

Meantime, take a few minutes to enjoy a fab new remix of Shatterproof form the Maths' Interplay album, executed by none other than Steven Mallinder, erstwhile Cabaret Voltaire member, electronic music guru and good bloke. Together with Phil from Wrangler they've come up with this rather wonderful remix for your listening pleasure, and The Maths' Benge has even done his own "low-tech" video to suit!

...and while we're at it let's pay homage to the great Cabaret Voltaire themselves with Just Fascination from 1983's excellent The Crackdown album. To quote one youtube commenter : "These guys should have been bigger, i mean they deserved to be bigger." Couldn't agree more.

further reading: Stephen Mallinder's music+art feature (Jan. 2010)

Belgique: douze points

Yes it's full marks from the Lost in Music jury to the splendid kingdom of Belgium where the good burgers of   Hasselt have organised a rather spiffing 'industrial music' festival called Sinner's Day for 30th October next.
Said fest will feature such greats as Blancmange, John Foxx & the Maths, Karl Bartos, The Psychedelic Furs, The Cult, The Mission and top new romatic band Visage.
Check the Sinner's Day website for all the necessary info on everything from alcohol to, er, toilets...
Furthermore, being towards the Eastern part of Belgium, Hasselt is very close to Germany and Holland and conveniently placed for many Europeans. Uitstekende!

some good burgers of Hasselt (Belgium)  yesterday, getting excited about seeing Visage live in October.

Which one's Pink?

Get ready for a Pink Floyd revival onslaught from now until at least the end of the year, and beyodn, as loads of re-issues of the band's back catalogue are planned in various formats under the Why Pink Floyd? banner, as well as a new compilation CD A Foot in the Door.

UK music monthly MOJO celebrate the band (again) in their October issue (out now?!?!) with big feature and a double CD with cover versions of tracks off Floyd mega-albums Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here all by contemporary artists most of which we've never heard of, save for The Orb and the mighty John Foxx and The Maths.

Read the story about Foxx and Benge's cover of Have a Cigar in an exclusive interview on the Metamatic website. You can listen to the CD track in this youtube clip, although MOJO have since announced that they got the wrong version out (doh) and you can download the correct one free from their site here.

..oops I did it again...

Not content with having shook the world of John Foxx and the Maths with my attempt at making a music video for their ace album track Destination, I'm having another shot at distorting the world's imagination with a few visuals for top Interplay track Summerland.
This week we are taken into the wonderful world of integrated circuits and new-fangled "micro-chips". We'll see how they're made, what they do, and how they can help us with our....maths.
Wake me up when we arrive..

..here's one I made earlier..

Just a little vid I put together to go with one of Foxx n Maths new album tracks. All done quite by coincidence of course, but the two things (Soviet TV ads and Destination) just sort of forged together like a dream.
Apologies to Messrs. Foxx and Benge, the latter quite rightly commenting WTF when he came across it on my dailymotion video channel. (snigger) I'll probably get banned from something for doing this so watch it while you can ...if you will.
My destination (and fate)...is unknown.

Electro-albums ready to go

Some exciting electro-music albums coming up soon with at least four promising albums waiting in the wings:

As already mentioned here godfather-of-electro John Foxx's latest analogue project with Benge (pic. left) takes the form of the first John Foxx & The Maths album Interplay, to be released on 21st March. There's now an official site here and also a remix competition for opening track Shatterproof here. Initial copies ordered from Townsend will be in special deluxe digi-packs. Previewed tracks find Foxx on fine form, still going strong since his Ultravox! days which began way back in 1976.
(Meanwhile we are still waiting for the much needed Metamatic official site makeover).


Sheffield electro-gurus The Human League are also back on the scene. After the long awaited new single Night People, which received mixed opinions and reviews, the new album Credo should be out in March. It's their first since 2001's Secrets and comes some 32 years after The Human League's first long-player Reproduction.
As usual, the band have kept a low internet-profile up to now although an official site has sprung up here and an official Facebook page too.
Live dates continue through Europe and (bizarrely) South America in March and April.


Blackburn duo Blancmange are also re-emerging from the murky depths of the mid-eighties with the brand new Blanc Burn set for release on 7th March. See their myspace page for previews, tour dates and order details. The oddball Lancashire couple released three albums between 1982 and 1985, hitting the singles charts with songs like Living On the Ceiling, Blind Vision and a tongue-in-cheek cover of Abba's The Day Before You Came. It'll be interesting to see what they've come up with this time.


It's not all electro-wrinklies tho as new band Mirrors from Brighton are set to release their debut album Lights & Offerings on February 28th. Check out preview tracks on their myspace page and follow the links to order. It's also worth taking some time to read their excellent blog The World of Mirrors if you can.
I may have posted this before but here's their excellent Look At Me from last year.

PS this post was mostly written just to remind myself of how much stuff I have to order.

Foxx + Benge = album

The long awaited musical joint-venture between electro-pioneer and guru John Foxx and analogue synth collector and overall techno-anorak Benge finally starts to take (geometrical) shape with a new album announced for 21st March.
Interplay is the title of the album by John Foxx and The Maths, which looks and sounds very fresh and exciting indeed.
Last year's Maths' "single" release Destination b/w September Town was a pleasant enough taster, blending pure analogue warmth with Foxx's sturdy vocals, and now Evergreen - downloadable free with album pre-orders from Townsend - has a nice Spring-time feel to it, with a light synth-pop melody over a heavy bass line and Foxxy in fine form at the mike with a vocal sounding much like he did on mid-80s on tracks like Annexe and Young Man.

Like the music, the cover art by Jonathan Barnbrooke also hints at springtime with a colourful geometric flower shape (yes, also a bit like a 'maths' textbook) and is a welcome departure from Foxx's usual monochrome and darker album designs.

Roll on Spring equinox!