The Art Of Noise – Who’se Afraid Of

It was 1984, and already the charts were filling up with New Romantics and quite bland melodies.  Then suddenly came a sound we had never heard before (and might never again).  The Art Of Noise was a British avante-garde synth heavy group, made up of an engineer, a computer programmer and only Anne Dudley with any real musical history, having been trained in classical piano.  From the first few seconds of opening track ‘A Time For Fear’ with that incredible bass-heavy doom marching drum, you knew this was special.  An almost completely instrumental album, with snatches of spoken words (Can I Say Something?) and rapid changes in tempo and melody it still blows my socks off.  Three superb singles – ‘Beat Box’, ‘Close To The Edit’ and the sublime ‘Moments In Love’ led the charge on the charts.  But the whole album just zips along; it sounds like they were having the greatest fun.

The group was pretty flexible with a few personnel changes along the way.  The only other album I have of theirs is ‘The Seduction Of Claude Debussy (1999), which I think is, apart from remixes was their last.  But that first album still makes me smile…and who wouldn’t be afraid of this impeccable sound of the future.