John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh; 26 September 1948)[1][2] is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox, before leaving to embark on a solo career in 1980 with the album Metamatic.
Primarily associated with electronic synthesizer music, he has also pursued a parallel career in graphic design and education. Andy Kellman of AllMusic described Foxx as an influential cult figure whose "detached, jolting vocal style inspired mainstream and underground artists across the decades".[3]
During his youth in the 1960s he embraced the lifestyles of a mod and a hippy, while he formed his first band Woolly Fish in 1967 in Preston.[7] He experimented with tape recorders and synthesisers whilst at the Royal College of Art.[8]
Prior to 1973, he was singing and playing a 12-string guitar and occasionally supported Stack Waddy in Manchester, from which he later moved to London in order to escape what he saw as a lack of musical stimulus.[9]
Musical career
Tiger Lily
In April 1974, Foxx formed a band that would eventually be called Tiger Lily, composed of bassist Chris Allen and guitarist Stevie Shears, with Canadian drummer Warren Cann joining shortly afterwards in May 1974. The band played their first gig at the Marquee Club in August 1974, after which Billy Currie was recruited as violinist in October 1974.
Tiger Lily released a single in 1975 on Gull Records, the A-side of which was a cover of the Fats Waller track "Ain't Misbehavin'". It was commissioned for (but not subsequently used in) a movie of the same name. The B-side was the group's own song "Monkey Jive". Tiger Lily played a few gigs in London pubs between 1974 and 1975.
After several changes of name, including Fire of London, The Zips and The Damned, the band became Ultravox! in October 1976. The group's style fused punk, glam, electronic, reggae and new wave music. At the same time, Leigh adopted his stage name of John Foxx:[10]
Foxx is much more intelligent than I am, better looking, better lit. A kind of naively perfected entity. He's just like a recording, where you can make several performances until you get it right – or make a composite of several successful sections, then discard the rest.
Chris Allen, who had briefly gone by the name Chris St. John, changed his name again, to Chris Cross.
Once the band signed to Island Records, they released three albums during 1977–1978. The debut Ultravox! single, "Dangerous Rhythm", backed with "My Sex", was released on 4 February 1977. Their first album (the self-titled Ultravox!) was released three weeks later on 25 February 1977, produced by Steve Lillywhite and the band, with assistance from Brian Eno. It was followed by their second album Ha! Ha! Ha! in October 1977, which included the single "ROckWrok", although both were commercial failures.[citation needed]
For their third album, Systems of Romance, Ultravox abandoned the exclamation mark in their name. Also missing was their first guitarist, Stevie Shears, who was replaced by Robin Simon, from Neo. The album was co-produced by Conny Plank. Two singles were released from the album, "Slow Motion" and "Quiet Men". Sales were modest, but the album did gain the band exposure to a wider audience, including the United States.
During the recording of Systems of Romance, a song of the same name was written, but the band had no time to record it. It was later included on Foxx's second solo album The Garden.[11] At Systems of Romance gigs, Foxx began to perform with the band three future solo songs, "He's a Liquid" and "Touch and Go" (later included on Metamatic, Foxx's first solo album) and "Walk Away" (included on The Garden). The latter song was not performed again by Foxx until 1983.
Ultravox were dropped by their record label at the very end of 1978.[12] The band undertook a self-financed tour of the United States in February, during which they performed three new songs, "Touch and Go" and "He's a Liquid", which Foxx later recorded for Metamatic, and "Radio Beach".[13] Foxx left the band at the end of the tour, and returned to solo work. He was replaced by Midge Ure.
Solo career (1980–1985)
After signing to Virgin Records, Foxx achieved two top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with his first solo singles, "Underpass" (No. 31) and "No-One Driving" (No. 32).[14] Its parent album Metamatic was released on 17 January 1980, and peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart.[14] Foxx played most of the synthesisers and "rhythm machines", as they were listed on the sleeve. One of the album's songs, "Metal Beat", takes its name from a CR-78drum machine sound used on the record. Virgin released the album under the imprint name Metal Beat Records, which was used for Foxx releases throughout his contract with them.
The non-album single "Burning Car" followed in July 1980. Spending seven weeks on the UK charts, it reached its peak position at no. 35 in August.[15] Foxx then worked on dozens of tracks for two projected albums, and one of these tracks, "My Face", was released on a flexi-disc given away with Smash Hits in October 1980.[16]
Foxx's next album was The Garden, released in September 1981. It reached No. 24 in the UK Albums Chart.[14] Musically it was a departure from the stark electropop of Metamatic to a sound resembling Ultravox Systems of Romance. The Garden's starting point was "Systems of Romance", written by Foxx for the earlier album but not released at the time.[11] The lead single "Europe After the Rain" became Foxx's fourth and last top 40 hit on the UK Singles Chart during a five-week chart run in August/September 1981.[15]
In 1982, Foxx set up his own recording studio, designed by Andy Munro, also called The Garden, housed in an artists' collective in Shoreditch, East London, in a former warehouse also occupied by sculptors, painters and film makers. He produced some demo recordings for Virginia Astley's first album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.[17]
In 1983, Foxx provided some music for the soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Identification of a Woman (Identificazione di una donna). In September that year, his third solo LP The Golden Section was released (UK No. 27).[14] A development of The Garden, Foxx described the album as a "roots check" of his earliest musical influences, including The Beatles and English psychedelic music.[17] It was followed by a tour, his first live performances since Ultravox.[18]
The album In Mysterious Ways was issued in October 1985, which spent one week at No. 85 in the UK chart.[14] Musically it was not considered a significant advance on the sound of his three previous releases, nor was it a commercial success although the album's lyrics are far more romantic than any of his previous albums.[19] Foxx later said that at the time he felt divorced from any contemporary musical influences. However, he did produce, co-write and play on Pressure Points, by Anne Clark, the same year.[20]
Foxx began to find inspiration in the underground house and acid music scenes in Detroit and London. With Nation 12 in the early 1990s, Foxx released two 12-inch singles, "Remember" and "Electrofear". The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon, best known for his Bomb the Bass project.[3] The group also wrote the music for the Bitmap Brothers computer games Speedball 2 (1990) and Gods (1991, "Into the Wonderful"). He also worked with LFO and made the music video for their eponymous debut single.[3] Around this time, Foxx also taught on the Graphic Arts and Design degree course at Leeds Metropolitan University.[21]
Re-emergence with Louis Gordon (1997)
On 24 March 1997, Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, Shifting City and Cathedral Oceans on Metamatic Records. Shifting City was Foxx's first collaboration with Manchester musician Louis Gordon.
On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1983 at The Astoria, London. A limited-edition twelve-track CD (1,000 numbered copies only) entitled Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour was available for purchase by ticketholders. Foxx and Gordon continued to work together, performing live on the Subterranean Omnnidelic Exotour in 1997 and 1998 and releasing a second album The Pleasures of Electricity, in September 2001. Two years later they toured again, to promote the album Crash and Burn, released in September 2003 on Foxx's own Metamatic Records.
Three collaborative albums with Louis Gordon were released in late 2006: Live From a Room (As Big as a City), a 'live' studio album from the 2003 tour (released in association with an interview CD entitled "The Hidden Man") in October; the studio album From Trash in November and a further album from the same sessions a few weeks later during the accompanying mini-tour. This two-CD package, entitled Sideways, included ten original tracks plus two extended versions of songs on From Trash. The second disc contained an extensive interview with Foxx describing the making of From Trash which was available only at concerts on the 2006 tour.
The "live in the studio" recordings originally distributed in limited edition during the 1998 Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour were later made available through the double-CD issue "The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour" (2002) and the double CD re-issue of "Shifting City" in 2009. The album Retro Future (2007) is a live-on-stage performance recorded on the Exotour, on 10 January 1998 at Shrewsbury Music Hall. It was released for Foxx's 2007 Metamatic tour, and was originally limited to 1000 pressings.
Collaborations
Foxx has performed and recorded with a variety of artists and musicians since returning to the music scene in the mid-nineties, most notably with Louis Gordon but also with Harold Budd, Jori Hulkkonen, Robin Guthrie (formerly of Cocteau Twins), Ruben Garcia and The Belbury Circle.
In April 2005, Foxx guested on Finnish DJ Jori Hulkkonen's album Dualizm, where he provided vocals for "Dislocated" which Hulkkonen had written for him. Foxx and Hulkkonen issued a further collaborative EP in 2008 entitled Never Been Here Before. A remix of Dislocated was issued on Foxx's 2010 compilation Metatronic, while Never Been Here Before appears on the 2013 compilation Metadelic. Hulkkonen played as supporting act to the first John Foxx And The Maths concert at The Roundhouse in 2010 and also joined Foxx and the band onstage to perform "Underpass". A new EP entitled European Splendour issued as John Foxx + Jori Hulkkonen was released in August 2013 on the Sugarcane Recordings label.[22]
Cathedral Oceans
The first volume of Cathedral Oceans was released at the same time as Foxx's comeback collaboration with Louis Gordon and the Shifting City album. In stark contrast to the latter, Cathedral Oceans is a more ethereal, ambient work combined with Foxx's own artwork of overgrown natural settings superimposed onto faces of statues. 2003 also saw the release of the second volume of Cathedral Oceans as well as another ambient record, the double CD Translucence and Drift Music with Harold Budd.[23] In 2004, from September through October, a collection of Cathedral Oceans images was exhibited at BCB Art, Hudson, New York, and in the following year Cathedral Oceans III was released.[citation needed]
A second surround sound DVD of Cathedral Oceans was released in March 2007. This contained his artwork made into a film intended as a "slowly moving, hallucinogenic, digital stained glass window, intended to be projected as big as possible onto architecture and in public places." The work was premiered in November 2006 at the Leeds International Film Festival. In July 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his Cathedral Oceans artwork as large format digital prints at Fulham Palace as part of the RetroFuture exhibition hosted by ArtHertz. On the opening night, Foxx performed a piano piece accompanying a reading from his unpublished novel The Quiet Man in front of an audience for the first time.
In 2005, Foxx appeared on stage at the Brighton Pavilion with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson as part of a concert to celebrate the work of the retiring pianist, which led to the announcement in October that year that Foxx would be involved in collaborations with Jah Wobble, Robin Guthrie,[3]Steve Jansen and Nelson.
Tiny Colour Movies
In June 2006, Foxx released an instrumental solo album, Tiny Colour Movies, consisting of 15 instrumental tracks inspired by short art films he saw at a private screening. His official website described these as having the "filmic, atmospheric approach" of the Metamatic-era instrumental B-sides "Glimmer", "Film One" and "Mr No". On 18 November 2006, Foxx gave a performance of the work at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton, where Tiny Colour Movies was premiered as part of the city's Film Festival. Edited versions of the movies were shown on a big screen for the first time with Foxx playing a mix of live and recorded accompaniment from the album. This 'film' was shown again at Fulham Palace in July 2007, and in a slightly revised format at the ICA and as part of the 21st International Film Festival, in Leeds during November that year.[citation needed]
In September 2007, a remastered edition of Metamatic was released as a two-CD pack containing the original album, plus most of the associated B-sides and extra tracks from the period, including two 'new' songs re-assembled from original music recorded at the time. In the same month, a showcase of Foxx's work was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, where he performed another version of Tiny Colour Movies and hosted a question-and-answer session. This was followed by the first live performance of the entire Metamatic album, during which Foxx and Louis Gordon were accompanied on stage by Steve D'Agostino. Later in the evening, the DVD of Cathedral Oceans was shown in one of the ICA cinema studios. In October, Foxx and Gordon toured the UK with Metamatic, culminating in a show at Cargo in London. The year ended with two shows at the Luminaire in London. A live album titled A New Kind of Man, culled from the Metamatic performances in 2007, was released on Metamatic Records on 28 April 2008.[24]
Foxx presented three different pieces of his solo work in the space of one week in June 2008. This began with a showing of Tiny Colour Movies at the Caixaforum in Barcelona on 14 June 2008, followed by a performance of Cathedral Oceans III inside the Great Hall at Durham Castle, England on 18 June. He then travelled to Italy and presented an extract from The Quiet Man at the 14th Festival Internazionale di Poesia in Genoa.[25]
In March 2013, Foxx took part in the On Vanishing Land project, a work by British sound artists and theorists Mark Fisher and Justin Barton. Described as a magisterial audio-essay On Vanishing Land evokes a walk undertaken by the artists along the Suffolk coastline in 2005, from Felixstowe container port to the Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo. The work integrates new compositions by John Foxx and other digital musicians Baron Mordant, Dolly Dolly, Ekoplekz, Farmers of Vega, Gazelle Twin, Pete Wiseman, Raime and Skjolbrot. As part of the event presentation, on 7 March, Foxx premièred a new piano work entitled Electricity and Ghosts with accompanying films made by himself and Karborn.[citation needed]
In December 2009, the Metamatic website announced the new musical project John Foxx and the Maths, the name given to the work written and produced by John Foxx and Benge. Benge had already broken the news on his own blog in November calling The Maths "a new album project". An initial download-only single, "Destination" / "September Town", was released in December 2009 by Townsend Records and later via iTunes.
The duo continued to work in Benge's studio throughout 2010 and some new tracks were previewed at the Short Circuit electronic music festival at The Roundhouse in London on 5 June 2010. A new album entitled Interplay was announced in January 2011 and released on 21 March. The album gained critical acclaim; The Quietus called it "one of the finest electronic records you'll hear in 2011",[26] and launched a remix competition to coincide with the release of the album. Stems of the album track "Shatterproof" were made available for download, remixing and re-uploading via the SoundCloud site. The competition was won by Dave Poeme Electronique. The release of the album was preceded by a remix of "Shatterproof" on YouTube.
Another live event featuring John Foxx and the Maths was held in April 2011. Back to the Phuture was billed as a special electronic music event, featuring live sets from Foxx, Gary Numan, Mirrors and Motor, plus a DJ set by Daniel Miller. Again, a selection of tracks from the new album and Foxx's past works were played.
A cover version of the Pink Floyd track "Have a Cigar" was recorded for a tribute CD issued by Mojo magazine with their October 2011 issue. It was announced shortly afterwards that the version on the CD was not the completed version, and a free download of the finished version was offered via the Mojo website.
A nine-date UK tour by John Foxx and the Maths was announced in July 2011, plus live performances in Poland and Belgium. A second album, The Shape of Things, was also announced prior to the tour and was initially only available for purchase at tour venues.
In January 2013, it was announced that John Foxx and the Maths would be the support act for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's English Electric spring tour.[27] The 13-date tour ran from 30 March to 14 April 2013. The only headline live show for 2013 was held on 7 June at the Brighton Concorde. The live-in-the-studio album, Rhapsody, was issued to coincide with these live performances.
An announcement of Foxx's official Facebook account in May 2019 stated that John Foxx and the Maths were back in the studio working on a new album, this time with Robin Simon on guitar. A short video clip of Foxx and Simon in Benge's studio was also posted on Benge's official account.[28] The resulting album, Howl, was released in July 2020, and reached No. 80 in the UK Albums Chart in early August 2020, becoming the first John Foxx and the Maths album to chart in the UK, and Foxx's first charting album in the UK since 1985.[29]
"Underpass" revisited
Over the years John Foxx's first solo single "Underpass", originally released in 1980, has come to be considered a milestone in the development of popular electronic music, and has gained recognition as iconic in the development of the electropop genre. In March 2010, Berlin producer Mark Reeder remixed the track "Underpass" (Reeder Sinister Subway Mix) for John Foxx's CD/DVD retrospective compilation Metatronic. Reeder not only remixed his versions from the original master tapes in stereo for the CD, but he also made 5.1 mixes of his own remixes and Foxx's original 1980s version.
The track was re-issued in May 2013 as a special edition 12-inch vinyl. The disc features two new remixes.[30] The sleeve features new artwork created by Jonathan Barnbrook who has designed the covers of all the John Foxx and the Maths releases.
Work outside music
In 2000, a Porcupine Tree release called Lightbulb Sun was issued with cover art by Foxx. In December 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his photographic works in an exhibition called Cinemascope at the Coningsby Gallery in west London. The images were part of three collections, "Grey Suit Music", "Tiny Colour Movies" and "Cathedral Oceans". His design work was the subject of an article in the UK monthly Creative review in September 2010. Between July and August 2016 an exhibition entitled "Europe After the Rain" was held at the University of South Australia featuring images made from photographs and found objects gathered over a period of around thirty years by Foxx in his travels across Britain and Europe.[31]
In November 2020 Foxx published The Quiet Man, a collection of short stories.[32]
Tributes and recognition
In the run up to the John Foxx and the Maths Interplay tour in October 2011, Artrocker ran a series of articles on Foxx, including a filmed interview taken at The Garden studios in London. Special features during the "John Foxx Week" also contained quotes and comments about his work from a variety of different musicians and film-makers, including The Orb, Vincent Gallo, members of Ladytron and Duran Duran, director Alex Proyas, and Awaydays creator Kevin Sampson. The corresponding printed version Artrocker (Issue 115) also featured Foxx and Gary Numan together in an in-depth interview.[33] The magazine contains further tributes by Philip Oakey of the Human League and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.
In May 2013, "Exponentialism", an EP of four cover versions of John Foxx tracks by I Speak Machine ("My Sex" and "I Want To Be A Machine") and Gazelle Twin ("He's A Liquid" and "Never Let Me Go"), was issued on Metamatic records. In 2011, Gazelle Twin told Artrocker magazine: "'Never Let Me Go' is a mirage of maternal comfort in a toxic and unrelenting world. It's one of those songs I wish I'd made; drenched in analogue pulses and drones. a lullaby-like synth melody accompanying an android (yet emotional) dual-vocal part. I can definitely feel a cover coming on".
Ultravox were a British new wave band, formed in London in April 1974 as Tiger Lily. Between 1980 and 1986, they scored seven Top Ten albums and seventeen Top 40 singles in the UK, the most successful of which was their 1981 hit "Vienna".
Metamatic is the debut solo album by John Foxx, released in 1980. It was his first solo project following his split with Ultravox the previous year. A departure from the mix of synthesizers and conventional rock instrumentation on that band's work, Metamatic was purely electronic in sound. The name 'Metamatic' comes from a painting machine by kinetic artist Jean Tinguely, first exhibited at the Paris Biennial in 1959. The album peaked at #18 on the UK Albums Chart.
The Golden Section is a 1983 album by English musician John Foxx. A progression from the sound of The Garden (1981), 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 Foxx's first work with a producer since his final Ultravox album, Systems of Romance, in 1978; The Golden Section was co-produced by Zeus B. Held, well known in the Krautrock scene of the 1970s. In addition to Foxx's wide array of synthesizers, the production made extensive use of vocoder effects and sampling, along with traditional rock guitar.
The Garden is a 1981 album by John Foxx, the follow-up to his debut solo album Metamatic, released the previous year. By comparison, it features more diverse instrumentation and romantic stylings.
Ultravox! is the debut studio album by British new wave band Ultravox. It was recorded at Island Studios in Hammersmith, London in the autumn of 1976 and produced by Ultravox and Steve Lillywhite with studio assistance from Brian Eno. It was released on 25 February 1977 by Island.
Systems of Romance, released on 8 September 1978, is the third album by British new wave band Ultravox. It was the final recording for the group with original lead singer, lyricist and co-composer John Foxx, and their first album without guitarist Stevie Shears, who had left the band. Shears was replaced by Robin Simon, making his first and only appearance on an Ultravox album. Though not a commercial success, Systems of Romance had a significant influence on the electropop music that came after it.
"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 track on the 2001 and 2007 CD reissues. It was Foxx's last 1980s record in a hard-edged electronica style.
Robin Simon is a British guitarist who was a member of Ultravox, Magazine and Visage.
"Young Savage" is the second single by Ultravox!. It was released as a single by Island Records on 28 May 1977, during a time of experimentation to define a new sound for the band, in advance of their second album.
Retro was the only EP (7") by Ultravox, then Ultravox!, released on 10 February 1978. It was the last recording released by the band as Ultravox!. Also this was the last disc featuring original guitarist Stevie Shears, who left the band after its release.
Shifting City is an album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 1997. Released simultaneously with Foxx's ambient album Cathedral Oceans, Shifting City was Foxx's first album release since In Mysterious Ways (1985).
Metatronic is a retrospective compilation of recorded audio and visual material by British musician and recording artist John Foxx. It was released in 2010 by Edsel Records to mark the 30th anniversary of Foxx's debut solo album Metamatic and the start of his solo career. The idea for the compilation was first mentioned in the Ultravox fanzine Extreme Voice back in 1999.
Benjamin David Edwards, known professionally as Benge, is an English musician and record producer based in Cornwall, England. The main focus of his work is within the experimental electronic music field.
John Foxx and the Maths is a musical project featuring electronic music pioneer John Foxx, Benge and more recently Hannah Peel. The group specialises in the use of analogue synthesizers and drum machines. It was initially a studio based project working from Benge's studio in Shoreditch, London but has also engaged in live work.
"No-One Driving" is a 1980 song by UK artist John Foxx, and was released as a single in March 1980. It was the second single release from the Metamatic album, after "Underpass". The song is typical of Foxx's musical output of the time, featuring a Ballardian dystopian scenario involving an automobile in the lyrics, with music produced using electronic instruments only.
This is a complete discography of the British recording artist John Foxx.
"Underpass" is a song by UK artist John Foxx, and was released as a single in January 1980. It was the artist's first solo single release after leaving the band Ultravox and the first single release from the Metamatic album, which was released shortly after.
Assembly is the title of an 18-track compilation album by British recording artist John Foxx, issued in 1992. It contains tracks from the artist's first four albums – Metamatic, The Garden, The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways as well as tracks which had not been previously issued in an album format. The album was remastered for CD by Foxx himself, and although was the first time many of his solo tracks had appeared on CD there were no new tracks and none of the tracks remain exclusive to this release.
Modern Art - the Best of John Foxx is the title of an 18-track compilation album by British recording artist John Foxx, issued in 2001.
"Europe After The Rain" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in August 1981, and included on The Garden album released later the same year.
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