John Foxx
Encyclopedia
John Foxx is an English singer, artist, photographer and teacher. He was the original lead singer of the band 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....

 before being replaced by Midge Ure
Midge Ure
James "Midge" Ure, OBE is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter...

, when he left to embark on a solo career in 1979. Primarily associated with electronic synthesiser music, he has also pursued a parallel career in graphic design and education.

Early life

Foxx was born 26 September 1947, in Chorley
Chorley
Chorley is a market town in Lancashire, in North West England. It is the largest settlement in the Borough of Chorley. The town's wealth came principally from the cotton industry...

, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

. His father was a coal miner and pugilist, his mother a millworker. He attended St Mary’s Primary and St Augustine’s Secondary schools. During his youth in the 1960s he embraced the lifestyle of a mod and a hippy. He experimented with tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...

s and synthesisers while on a scholarship at the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

 in London.

His first band, formed whilst at art college in Preston, was called Woolly Fish.

Prior to 1973, he was singing and playing a 12 string guitar, and occasionally supported Stack Waddy in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, from where he later moved to London in order to escape what he saw as a lack of musical stimulus.

Tiger Lily

In 1973 he formed a band that would eventually be called Tiger Lily
Tiger Lily (UK band)
Tiger Lily was a short-lived glam rock band and the seed of Ultravox! . It was founded in London in 1973 by Royal College of Art student Dennis Leigh , who escaped from his northern industrial environment in Lancashire, Chris St...

, comprising initially bassist Chris Allen (real name: Christopher Thomas Allen) and guitarist Stevie Shears
Stevie Shears
Stevie Shears is a musician known for playing in english rock bands Tiger Lily and Ultravox! , alongside electronic musician John Foxx.-Tiger Lily and Ultravox!:...

, with Canadian 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:...

 joining shortly afterwards, in early 1974. The band played their first official gig at the Marquee
Marquee Club
The Marquee was a music club first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts.It was also the location of the first ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962....

 club in August 1974. After the gig Billy Currie
Billy Currie
Billy Currie is an English violist, violinist, pianist, keyboardist, and songwriter...

 was recruited as violinist.

Tiger Lily released a single on 14 March 1975 on Gull Records, the A-side of which was a cover of the Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

 track "Ain't Misbehavin'". It was commissioned for (but not subsequently used in) a soft porn
Erotica
Erotica are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...

 movie of the same name. The B-side of "Ain't Misbehavin'" was the group's own song - "Monkey Jive". The small amount of money they received for recording this single was used to buy Billy Currie an electric piano.

Ultravox!

Tiger Lily played frequently in London pubs between 1974 and 1975, however their Bowie-esque glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 sound was rendered superfluous by the advent of punk
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...

.

After several name-changes, including Fire of London, The Zips and even The Damned, the band transformed into 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....

, with an exclamation mark, in July 1976. The group's style fused punk
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...

, glam, electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 and 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...

 music. Around this time, Leigh adopted his stage name of John Foxx (while Chris Allen, who had briefly gone by the name Chris St. John, changed his name again, to Chris Cross).

Among the elements that set the band apart from their contemporaries were Foxx's lyrics and vocal delivery, and Billy Currie
Billy Currie
Billy Currie is an English violist, violinist, pianist, keyboardist, and songwriter...

's violin and synthesiser playing. Once the band signed to Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...

, they released three LPs during 1977-1978. The first Ultravox! single, Dangerous Rhythm, a reggae-styled song, backed with "My Sex", was released 19 January 1977. Their first album (the self-titled Ultravox!) was released shortly afterwards, produced by Steve Lillywhite
Steve Lillywhite
Steve Lillywhite is an English Grammy Award winning record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited for working on over 500 records and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Peter Gabriel,...

 and the band, with assistance from Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

. The album attracted a lot of attention, but did not sell well. It was quickly followed by their second album Ha!-Ha!-Ha!
Ha!-Ha!-Ha!
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! was the second album by British pop group Ultravox, at that time formally known as "Ultravox!", with an exclamation mark, as a nod to Neu!...

, which featured a more jagged punk sound, and included the single ROckWrok
ROckWrok
"ROckWrok" is a single by the post-punk band Ultravox!, released on October 7, 1977 by Island Records. It was the last British non-free single released from the Ha! Ha! Ha! album and featuring Stevie Shears as guitarist...

, although both were commercial failures.. A notable track from "Ha! Ha! Ha!" was Hiroshima Mon Amour which saw the band's increasing use of synthesisers come to the fore and pointed the way for a new musical direction. The song is also notable for its use of a Roland TR-77 drum machine, possibly the first recorded use of a drum machine by a British band.

Ultravox and Systems of Romance

For their third album, Systems of Romance
Systems of Romance
Systems of Romance, released on 8 September 1978, is the third album by British band Ultravox...

, Ultravox adopted a smoother sound, and abandoned the exclamation mark in their name. Also missing was their first guitarist, the punk-oriented Stevie Shears, who was replaced by 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,...

, from a band called Neo
Neo (UK band)
Neo was an early New Wave band which was part of the Engish musical scene originated by punk in the 1970s. The group was formed by the American-born singer Ian North, who was the frontman and the only continuous member from the band formation in 1977 to the end in 1979.-Early days: Radio:In 1976,...

. The album was co-produced by Conny Plank
Conny Plank
Konrad "Conny" Plank was a German record producer and musician. He was born in Hütschenhausen. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including...

, an early associate of German electronic band 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...

. The punk sound of the previous records was abandoned in favour of a sleek, electronic production that was a precursor of the synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

 sound. Two singles were released from the album, "Slow Motion" and "Quiet Men
Quiet Men
"Quiet Men" is the fifth single from New Wave and synthpop band Ultravox. It was released in 1978 and was their last single on Island Records before the band signed to Chrysalis Records...

". Sales were modest, but the album did gain the band exposure to a wider audience, including the United States. Systems of Romance is often regarded as the first synthpop album and, as such, it strongly influenced bands that were to follow.

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
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...

. [] At Systems of Romance gigs, Foxx began to perform with the band three future solo songs, "He's a Liquid" and "Touch & Go" (later included on Metamatic
Metamatic
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 synthesizers and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged...

, Foxx's first solo album) and "Walk Away" (included on The Garden album). The latter song was not performed again by Foxx until 1983.

First American tour and departure from Ultravox

Despite being dropped by their record label at the beginning of 1979 http://www.discog.info/ultravox-interview4.html, Ultravox undertook a self-financed tour of the United States in February, which was successful in terms of crowd enthusiasm and ticket sales. During the tour, the band performed two new songs, "Touch and Go", which Foxx later recorded for Metamatic, and "Radio Beach", which was never recorded in the studio.

Foxx had informed the band that he wished to leave. The band came to a parting of the ways at the end of the tour on the west coast of the United States, Robin Simon deciding to stay on in New York and Foxx announcing his plan to go solo upon returning to England. http://www.discog.info/ultravox-interview4.html Without a lead singer, the band went into hiatus, Billy Currie joining 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 touring band and contributing to his highly successful 1979 album, 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...

. [] The burgeoning popularity of synthesiser music at this time, and Numan's oft-quoted praise for the Foxx-fronted lineup and song-output of Ultravox, helped revive interest in the band. Billy Currie rejoined the group, while John Foxx was replaced as lead vocalist by Midge Ure
Midge Ure
James "Midge" Ure, OBE is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter...

, of The Rich Kids
The Rich Kids
Rich Kids were a short-lived, seminal new wave band from London, founded in 1977 by Glen Matlock following his departure from The Sex Pistols. The band also included future Ultravox member Midge Ure, and Rusty Egan, who later went to found Visage.-Career:...

, Slik
Slik
Slik were a Scottish pop group of the mid 1970s, most notable for their UK no.1 hit "Forever and Ever" in 1976. Beginning with glam rock and changing their style to soft rock/bubblegum...

 and Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

 http://www.classicbands.com/thinlizzy.html whom Currie had met whilst working with Ure in Visage
Visage
Visage are a British New Wave rock band. Formed in 1978, the band became closely linked to the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement of the early 1980s, and are best known for their 1980 hit "Fade to Grey".-New Wave years :...

, Currie being encouraged to ask Ure by Ure's friend and former bandmate (in The Rich Kids), Rusty Egan
Rusty Egan
Rusty Egan was the drummer for the British new wave band, The Rich Kids. They were founded by former Sex Pistol, Glen Matlock, bass guitarist and backing vocals, occasional lead vocals; with Steve New guitarist and backing vocals, occasional lead vocals; and fronted by Midge Ure guitarist, lead...

.. Ultravox then built on some of the ideas explored on Systems of Romance, achieving huge worldwide success with the album Vienna in 1980, after which the band released a series of popular albums and singles. Midge Ure was active in organising, and Ultravox performed at, Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...

 in 1985, and at subsequent Live Aid events. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4078580.stm This Ultravox lineup lasted another nine years http://www.nme.com/artists/ultravox, overshadowing Foxx's concurrent solo career.

Solo

After signing to Virgin Records
Virgin Group
Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organisation founded by business tycoon Richard Branson. The core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding...

, Foxx achieved minor chart success with his first solo single, "Underpass" (UK Chart Pos. #31) and "No-One Driving" (UK Chart Pos. #32). Its parent album Metamatic
Metamatic
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 synthesizers and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged...

 appeared in record shops on 17 January 1980. Foxx played most of the synthesisers and "rhythm machines", as they were listed on the sleeve. The name of one of the album's songs, "Metal Beat", takes its name from a 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...

 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.http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=27366

Foxx's next LP was 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...

, released 25 September 1981. This recording was a departure from the stark electronic sound of Metamatic, bearing a greater resemblance to Foxx’s swansong with Ultravox, Systems of Romance. The Gardens starting point was in fact a song called "Systems of Romance", written by Foxx for the earlier album but not released at the time.[]

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
From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
From Gardens Where We Feel Secure is the title of the first Virginia Astley album issued on her own Happy Valley label and distributed by Rough Trade Records.The album was released in July 1983 and peaked at number 4 in the UK Indie Chart...

 http://www.neo-romantic.org.uk/ent-foxx.html. Artists such as Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...

, British Electric Foundation
B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation)
B.E.F. are a band/production company formed by former Human League members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh who later became Heaven 17 .-History:Ware and Marsh's first release as B.E.F...

, Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

, Trevor Horn
Trevor Horn
Trevor Charles Horn CBE is an English pop music record producer, songwriter, musician and singer. He was born in Houghton-le-Spring in north-east England....

, Bronski Beat
Bronski Beat
Bronski Beat were a popular British synthpop trio who achieved success in the mid 1980s, particularly with the 1984 chart hit "Smalltown Boy". All members of the group were openly homosexual and their songs reflected this, often containing political commentary on gay-related issues...

, The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...

, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band, formed in Melbourne in 1983. The band is fronted by Nick Cave and has featured international personnel throughout their career.-Formation and early releases :...

, Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...

, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Tuxedomoon
Tuxedomoon
Tuxedomoon is an experimental post-punk/New Wave group formed in San Francisco, California, consisting of core members Blaine L. Reininger, Steven Brown and Peter Principle....

 also recorded in Foxx's studio.

In 1983, Foxx provided some music for the soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...

's film Identification of a Woman (Identificazione di una Donna) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289354/. In September that year, his third solo LP 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...

 was released. A development of the sound of The Garden, Foxx described this album as a "roots check" of his earliest influences such as The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, psychedelia, and other pre-punk sources.

The album In Mysterious Ways
In Mysterious Ways
In Mysterious Ways is a 1985 album by John Foxx, the follow-up to his album The Golden Section, released two years previously. It features some of the highly romantic style similar to 1981's The Garden album, although in many ways lacking the finesse of the earlier record...

 was issued in October 1985. Musically it was not considered a significant advance on the sound of his two previous releases, nor was it a commercial success although the album's lyrics are far more romantic than any of his previous albums. http://www.tracklicensing.com/track?Track=5902. 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
Anne Clark
Anne Clark is an English poet and songwriter. Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then....

, the same year [].

Withdrawal from the music scene

After In Mysterious Ways, Foxx gave up a public career in pop music http://blog.thequietman.co.uk/2009/05/the-quiet-man-albumperformanceexhibition/. He sold his recording studio and returned to his earlier career as a graphic artist, working under his original name of Dennis Leigh. Examples of his work at this time include the book covers of Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh
The Moor's Last Sigh
The Moor's Last Sigh is the fifth novel by Salman Rushdie, and was published in 1995. Set in the Indian cities of Bombay and Cochin , it is the first major work that Rushdie produced after the The Satanic Verses affair, and thus is referential to that circumstance in many ways, especially the...

, Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson OBE is a British novelist.-Early years:Winterson was born in Manchester and adopted on 21 January 1960. She was raised in Accrington, Lancashire, by Constance and John William Winterson...

's Sexing the Cherry
Sexing the Cherry
Sexing the Cherry is a novel by Jeanette Winterson.Set in 17th century London, Sexing the Cherry is about the journeys of a mother, known as The Dog Woman, and her protégé, Jordan...

, Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

' A Dead Man in Deptford
A Dead Man in Deptford
A Dead Man in Deptford was written late in Anthony Burgess's life, and is the last of his novels to be published during his lifetime.It depicts the life and character of Christopher Marlowe, one of the greatest playwrights of the Elizabethan era....

, and several books in the Arden Shakespeare
Arden Shakespeare
The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries...

 series. He also continued experimenting with reverberation, vocal treatments and echo in 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 :...

, working on a project he called 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...

.

After about five years "living like a ghost in London", Foxx began to find inspiration in the underground House
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

 and Acid
Acid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...

 music scenes in Detroit and London. With Nation 12 in the early 1990s, Foxx released two 12-inch single
12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...

s, "Remember" and "Electrofear". The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon, best known for his Bomb the Bass
Bomb the Bass
Bomb the Bass is the umbrella title for the output of British musician and producer, Tim Simenon. The band, which has evolved its style over the years, has been classed as electronic or dance....

 project. The group also wrote the music for the Bitmap Brothers
Bitmap Brothers
The Bitmap Brothers were a UK based video game developer founded in 1987. The company entered the industry in 1988 with the scrolling shooter Xenon. They quickly followed with the classic Speedball...

 computer games Speedball 2 (1990) and Gods
Gods (video game)
Gods is a 1991 video game by The Bitmap Brothers where the player is cast as Hercules in his quest to achieve immortality. The game was first made for Amiga and Atari ST computers and then ported for various other platforms...

 (1991). He also worked with pioneers in this field such as LFO
LFO
LFO may refer to:* LFO , an English techno act* LFO , an American three-man pop/rap group** LFO , an album released by the American pop group LFO* Light Finding Operation, a form of mecha from the anime TV series Eureka Seven...

 and made the music video for their eponymous debut single. Around this time, Foxx also taught on the Graphic Arts & Design degree course at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Re-emergence

On 24 March 1997, John Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, Shifting City and 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...

 on Metamatic Records
Metamatic Records
Metamatic Records is an English record label predominantly used to release recordings by the English musician and artist John Foxx. The record label includes other notable artists' work, including Louis Gordon, Steve Jansen & Robin Guthrie.-Albums:...

.

Shifting City was a collaboration with Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

's Louis Gordon
Louis Gordon
Louis Gordon is an English musician notable for his collaboration with John Foxx. He has worked with Foxx on a number of albums since 1995. His solo work has also been released on the Toffeetones record label.-Biography:...

, an updated stylistic return to Foxx's Metamatic synth pop sound which also displayed the influence of 1990s underground dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

 and the 'triphop' style, along with the psychedelic Beatles-esque pop first apparent on Ultravox’s "When You Walk Through Me" (from 'Systems Of Romance').

On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1982 at The Astoria, London. A limited edition CD (1,000 numbered copies only) entitled Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour was available for purchase by ticket holders.

Cathedral Oceans was a solo John Foxx record, an ambient
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 :...

 return to his Catholic youth and his love of the cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

s of England and Europe. Its roots included traditional evensong
Evening Prayer (Anglican)
Evening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening...

, Gregorian Chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

, Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

, Harold Budd
Harold Budd
Harold Budd is an American ambient/avant-garde composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires....

, and German band Cluster
Cluster (band)
Cluster is a German experimental musical group who influenced the development of contemporary popular electronic and ambient music. They have recorded albums in a wide variety of styles ranging from experimental music to progressive rock, all of which had an avant-garde edge. Cluster has been...

. From his own music Foxx drew on such pieces as "My Sex" from the first self-titled Ultravox! record, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!, "Just For a Moment" from Systems Of Romance, and the title track from The Garden. Cathedral Oceans began as a project during the sessions for "The Garden" and has been a work in progress for 20 years before this release, described by Foxx himself as one of the proudest achievements of his career. An accompanying DVD and book of images was made commercially available for the first time during an installation in Hoxton Square
Hoxton Square
Hoxton Square is a garden square situated in Hoxton in the London Borough of Hackney, in London's East End. Formerly home to industrial premises, since the 1990s it has become the heart of the Hoxton arts and media scene, as well as being a hub of the thriving local entertainment district...

, London, in January 2003.

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
The Pleasures of Electricity
The Pleasures of Electricity is an album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2001. It was the duo's second studio album, and Foxx's third after his return to the music scene in 1997....

, 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. This continued the Ballardian
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...

 themes of urban landscape and automobiles present in Metamatic, and was supplemented by the Drive EP. 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. 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.

In April 2005 Foxx guested on Finnish DJ Jori Hulkkonen
Jori Hulkkonen
Jori Hulkkonen, born 28 September 1973, is a Finnish DJ and a producer of house music, originally from Kemi, Finland. Hulkkonen started his career in the early 1990s when he worked with Jukka Hautamäki, Tuomas Salmela and Ari Ruokamo for their own label Lumi Records...

's album Dualizm, where he provided vocals for "Dislocated" which Hulkkonen had written especially for him. A month later, Foxx appeared on stage at the Brighton Pavilion with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson
Bill Nelson (musician)
Bill Nelson is an English guitarist, songwriter, producer, painter and experimental musician...

 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
Jah Wobble
Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...

, Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...

, Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen is an English drummer, percussionist, singer and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London, where he failed academically, leaving at 16....

 and Nelson. The following month an album's worth of salvaged Nation 12 material was finally issued under the title Electrofear. Despite its relatively low-key promotion and status as largely a 'work in progress', Electrofear encapsulated many of the original ideas that were more fully realised on Shifting City and, in its turn, From Trash.

In June 2006, Foxx released an instrumental solo album called Tiny Colour Movies consisting of fifteen 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
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, 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 then in a slightly revised format at the ICA and as part of the 21st International Film Festival in Leeds during November that year.

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 album saw a more commercial UK-wide release in April 2007.

A second surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...

 DVD 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...

 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
Leeds International Film Festival
The Leeds International Film Festival is the largest film festival in England outside London. Held in November at various venues throughout Leeds, West Yorkshire it shows over 200 films from around the world, commercial and independent....

.

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 September, 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.

On 29 September 2007, a showcase of Foxx's work was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London where he performed another version of Tiny Colour Movies and hosted a question-and-answer session. This was followed by the first-ever 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.

John 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
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 on 14 June 2008, followed by a performance of Cathedral Oceans III inside the Great Hall at Durham Castle, England on the 18th. He then travelled to Italy and presented an extract from The Quiet Man at the 14th Festival Internazionale di Poesia in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

.

In March 2010, Berlin producer Mark Reeder
Mark Reeder
Mark Reeder grew up in Manchester, England. He is a musician and record producer. At a young age, Reeder became interested in progressive rock and especially early electronic music. In his teens, he worked in a small Virgin Records store in Manchester city centre.Reeder has been living and working...

 was given 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 John Foxx's original 1980s version.

Tributes and recognition

In the run up to the John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths is a musical project featuring popular electronic music pioneers John Foxx and Benge. The duo were initially a studio based project working from Benge's studio in Shoreditch, London but have also engaged in live work....

 Interplay tour in October 2011, Artrocker
ArtRocker
Artrocker is a UK-based collective involved in music promotion and publishing. It was started by Paul Cox and Tom Fawcett who had been co-promoters of a London night called The Sausage Factory...

 ran a series of articles on Foxx, including a newly filmed interview taken at The Garden studios in London. Special features during the "John Foxx Week" also contained quotes and comments about John’s work from a variety of different musicians and film-makers, including The Orb
The Orb
Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...

, Vincent Gallo, members of Ladytron
Ladytron
Ladytron are an English electronic band formed in 1999 in Liverpool, Merseyside. The group consists of Helen Marnie , Mira Aroyo , Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu .Their sound blends electropop with New Wave and shoegazing elements. Ladytron described their sound as "electronic pop"...

 and Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

, director Alex Proyas, and Awaydays
Awaydays
Awaydays is a 2009 British film directed by Pat Holden and stars Stephen Graham. It is based on the novel of the same name by Kevin Sampson, originally published eleven years previously in 1998....

 creator Kevin Sampson.
The corresponding printed version Artrocker (Issue 115) also featured John Foxx and 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...

 together in an in-depth interview. . The magazine contains further tributes by Philip Oakey of The 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...

 and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds
Simple Minds
Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You ", from the soundtrack of the...

.

John Foxx And The Maths

In December 2009 the Metamatic website announced the new musical project John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths is a musical project featuring popular electronic music pioneers John Foxx and Benge. The duo were initially a studio based project working from Benge's studio in Shoreditch, London but have also engaged in live work....

, the name given to the work written and produced by John Foxx and Benge.. Benge had already broke the news on his own blog in November calling The Maths "a new album project".
An initial single Destination / September Town was released in December 2009 as download only from Townsend Records and later via i-tunes.
The duo continued to work in Benge's studio in Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...

 throughout 2010 and some new tracks were previewed at the Short Circuit electronic music festival at The Roundhouse in London on 5th June 2010.
A new album entitled Interplay
Interplay
Interplay may refer to:* Interplay , a 1957 album by jazz musician John Coltrane* Interplay , Jerome Robbins, 1945* Interplay , a 1962 album by jazz musician Bill Evans...

 was announced in January 2011 and released on March 21st. The album gained much critical acclaim with The Quietus
The Quietus
The Quietus is a British online rock music and pop culture magazine, focusing on arts news, reviews, and features. The site is an editorially independent publication led by John Doran and a group of freelance journalists and critics, some of whom have worked for other media outlets...

 calling it "one of the finest electronic records you'll hear in 2011." The Quietus
The Quietus
The Quietus is a British online rock music and pop culture magazine, focusing on arts news, reviews, and features. The site is an editorially independent publication led by John Doran and a group of freelance journalists and critics, some of whom have worked for other media outlets...

 also 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
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform which allows collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings.-History:SoundCloud was originally started in Stockholm, Sweden, but was established in Berlin, Germany in August, 2007 by sound designer Alex Ljung and artist Eric Wahlforss...

 site. The competition was won by Dave Poeme Electronique . The release of the album was preceded by a remix of Shatterproof on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....


Another live event featuring John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths is a musical project featuring popular electronic music pioneers John Foxx and Benge. The duo were initially a studio based project working from Benge's studio in Shoreditch, London but have also engaged in live work....

, originally scheduled for December 2010, was held in April 2011. Back to the Phuture was billed as a special electronic music event – featuring live sets from 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...

, 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...

, Mirrors and Motor
Motor
Motor is a device that creates motion. It usually refers to an engine of some kind. It may also specifically refer to:*Electric motor, a machine that converts electricity into a mechanical motion...

 – plus a DJ set by Mute Records
Mute Records
Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...

 founder 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
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

 track Have a Cigar
Have a Cigar
"Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It follows "Welcome to the Machine" and on the original LP opened side two...

 was recorded for a tribute CD issued by Mojo
Mojo
Mojo is a term commonly encountered in the African-American folk belief called hoodoo. A mojo is an amulet consisting of a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. It is related to the West African word "mojuba," meaning a prayer of praise and homage. It is a "prayer in a bag," or a spell...

 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
Mojo
Mojo is a term commonly encountered in the African-American folk belief called hoodoo. A mojo is an amulet consisting of a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. It is related to the West African word "mojuba," meaning a prayer of praise and homage. It is a "prayer in a bag," or a spell...

 website

A nine date UK tour by John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths
John Foxx And The Maths is a musical project featuring popular electronic music pioneers John Foxx and Benge. The duo were initially a studio based project working from Benge's studio in Shoreditch, London but have also engaged in live work....

 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.

Work outside music

In 2000, a Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...

 release called Lightbulb Sun
Lightbulb Sun
-2008 Reissues:A reissue of Lightbulb Sun was released on April 21, 2008 through Kscope as 2 disc set; or a 3 disc set for the first 5,000 pre-ordered copies. Disc one is a CD containing a remastered version of the original album album, while disc two is a DVD-A containing the album remixed into...

 was issued with cover art by Foxx.

Foxx has more recently taken a senior lecturer position at The London College of Music and Media TVU
Thames Valley University
The University of West London is a public university based in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in Ealing and Brentford, London, and Reading, Berkshire....

 in London, working with art, media and music students across a range of courses. These include a masters degree in Computer Arts, as well as undergraduate courses such as Digital Arts and Audio Technology. In mid-2005, he took a sabbatical to record new music, write, work on the films which make up Tiny Colour Movies and tour in Europe and the UK.

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".

Studio albums

with
  • 1977 - Ultravox!
    Ultravox! (album)
    Ultravox! is the first studio album from the band Ultravox!, which at the time was properly eponymous before the band dropped the Neu!-inspired exclamation mark from their name...

  • 1977 - Ha! Ha! Ha!
  • 1978 - Systems of Romance
    Systems of Romance
    Systems of Romance, released on 8 September 1978, is the third album by British band Ultravox...


Solo and collaborations
  • 1980 - Metamatic
    Metamatic
    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 synthesizers and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged...

  • 1981 - 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...

  • 1983 - 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...

  • 1985 - In Mysterious Ways
    In Mysterious Ways
    In Mysterious Ways is a 1985 album by John Foxx, the follow-up to his album The Golden Section, released two years previously. It features some of the highly romantic style similar to 1981's The Garden album, although in many ways lacking the finesse of the earlier record...

  • 1997 - Shifting City
    Shifting City
    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 .Stylistically Shifting City marked a return to the electronic sound of Foxx's 1980...

    (with Louis Gordon)
  • 1997 - 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...

  • 1998 - Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour (500 copy numbered edition with Louis Gordon. From the rehearsals for the 1998 UK tour - 15/04/1998)
  • 2001 - The Pleasures of Electricity
    The Pleasures of Electricity
    The Pleasures of Electricity is an album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2001. It was the duo's second studio album, and Foxx's third after his return to the music scene in 1997....

    (with Louis Gordon)
  • 2003 - 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...

     I + Cathedral Oceans II (02/06/2003)
  • 2003 - Translucence + Drift Music
    Translucence/Drift Music
    Translucence/Drift Music is a double studio LP by American ambient musician Harold Budd and English musician and graphic artist John Foxx, which was released in August 2003. Budd and Foxx had long been engaged by the other's work, eventually working together in 1996...

    (with Harold Budd
    Harold Budd
    Harold Budd is an American ambient/avant-garde composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires....

     25/08/2003)
  • 2003 - Crash and Burn
    Crash and Burn (John Foxx album)
    Crash and Burn is the third studio album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2003.-Track listing:# "Drive" — 6:55# "Cinema" — 5:09# "Broken Furniture" — 5:25# "Crash and Burn" — 4:03# "Once in a While" — 4:10# "Sex Video" — 5:00...

    (with Louis Gordon)
  • 2005 - Cathedral Oceans III (08/08/2005)
  • 2005 - Electrofear (as Nation 12 14/11/2005)
  • 2006 - Tiny Colour Movies
    Tiny Colour Movies
    -Background:Foxx attended a birthday celebration screening of a friend’s private film collection in Baltimore. The films in the collection were all short pieces collected from various sources, including surveillance agencies and Hollywood cutting room floors...

  • 2006 - The Hidden Man (2CD interview set, a reading from The Quiet Man and three new songs.)
  • 2006 - From Trash
    From Trash
    From Trash is the fourth studio album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2006. Further material from the same sessions was released during the same year as Sideways.-Track listing:# "From Trash" — 4:34# "Freeze Frame" — 3:57...

    (with Louis Gordon)
  • 2006 - Sideways (with Louis Gordon. 2CD companion piece to From Trash
    From Trash
    From Trash is the fourth studio album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2006. Further material from the same sessions was released during the same year as Sideways.-Track listing:# "From Trash" — 4:34# "Freeze Frame" — 3:57...

    , containing new tracks and an interview CD.)
  • 2007 - Metal Beat (2CD interview set between Steve Malins and John Foxx, discussing the making of Metamatic
    Metamatic
    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 synthesizers and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged...

    .)
  • 2008 - Impossible (with Louis Gordon. Remix album 16/10/2008)
  • 2009 - My Lost City (23/02/2009)
  • 2009 - A Secret Life (with Steve D'Agostino and Steve Jansen
    Steve Jansen
    Steve Jansen is an English drummer, percussionist, singer and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London, where he failed academically, leaving at 16....

     23/03/2009)
  • 2009 - Mirrorball (with Robin Guthrie
    Robin Guthrie
    Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...

     04/05/2009)
  • 2009 - The Quiet Man (Extracts from the ongoing Quiet Man book read by Justin Barton, together with a new piano score by John Foxx - 27/07/2009)
  • 2010 - D.N.A. (06/2010)
  • 2011 - Interplay John Foxx and The Maths with Benge
    Benge (Electronic Musician)
    Benge is the artist name of Ben Edwards , a musician and producer based in London, England. The main focus of his work is within the experimental electronic music field.-Solo career:...

     
  • 2011 - Nighthawks - John Foxx & Harold Budd featuring Ruben Garcia
  • 2011 - Torn Sunset - John Foxx & Theo Travis
  • 2011 - The Shape of Things John Foxx and The Maths with Benge
    Benge (Electronic Musician)
    Benge is the artist name of Ben Edwards , a musician and producer based in London, England. The main focus of his work is within the experimental electronic music field.-Solo career:...

     

Live albums

  • 2002 - The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour (02/12/2002)
  • 2006 - Live From a Room (As Big as a City) (with Louis Gordon 16/10/2006)
  • 2007 - Retro Future (with Louis Gordon)
  • 2008 - A New Kind of Man
  • 2008 - Neuro Video (with Louis Gordon 16/10/2008)
  • 2009 - In the Glow (05/10/2009)

Compilation albums

with Ultravox
  • 1976 - Rock & Reggae & Derek & Clive (various Island Records' artists compilation)
  • 1980 - Three Into One
    Three into One
    Three into One is the first compilation album from the band Ultravox, released in 1979 in the USA and in June 1980 in the UK. The album is a compilation of songs from their first three albums, Ultravox!, Ha!-Ha!-Ha! and Systems of Romance, and therefore concentrates on the earlier incarnation of...

  • 1993 - Slow Motion
  • 1999 - The Island Years
    The Island Years (Ultravox album)
    The Island Years is a compilation by Ultravox, released in 1999 by PolyGram and Spectrum labels. It comprise the songs of their three first albums , when John Foxx was the group's vocalist and frontman, and another two guitarists, Stevie Shears and Robin Simon were with them...


Solo
  • 1992 - Assembly (06/1992)
  • 2001 - Modern Art - The Best of John Foxx (04/06/2001)
  • 2008 - Glimmer: Best Of John Foxx (07/10/2008)
  • 2010 - Metatronic
    Metatronic
    Metratronic is a 2CD/1DVD retrospective of John Foxx material. It was released in 2010 by Edsel Records to mark the 30th anniversary of Metamatic.-CD 1:# Underpass # This City# No-One Driving# Burning Car# The Noise# Everyone...


EPs

with Ultravox
  • 1978 - Retro
    Retro (EP)
    Retro was the only EP by Ultravox, then Ultravox!, released on February 10, 1978. It was the last recording released by the band as Ultravox!...

    (7" 10/02/1978)
  • 1988 - "The Peel Sessions" (12") (Recorded for the John Peel
    John Peel
    John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

     Show, BBC Radio 1
    BBC Radio 1
    BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

    , 21 November 1977 - 04/1988)

with Louis Gordon
  • 1997 - Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour (1000 copy numbered edition, with Louis Gordon. From the 1997 UK tour - 10/10/1997)
  • 2003 - Drive EP (with Louis Gordon 09/09/2003)

Singles

With Tiger Lily
  • 1975 - "Ain't Misbehavin'" - 3:12 / "Monkey Jive" - 3:36 (7" 14/03/1975)

With Ultravox
  • 1977 - "Dangerous Rhythm" - 4:14 / "My Sex" - 3:01 (7" 04/02/1977)
  • 1977 - "Modern Love" (live) - 2:31 / "Quirks" - 1:38 (7" included free with the first copies of the album Ha!-Ha!-Ha!)
  • 1977 - "Young Savage" - 2:58 / "Slipaway" - 4:09 (live at The Rainbow) (7" 28/05/1977)
  • 1977 - "ROckwrok" - 3:33 / "Hiroshima Mon Amour
    Hiroshima Mon Amour
    Hiroshima mon amour is an acclaimed 1959 drama film directed by French film director Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. It is the documentation of an intensely personal conversation between a French-Japanese couple about memory and forgetfulness...

    " - 4:54 (7" 14/10/1977)
  • 1978 - "Slow Motion" - 3:27 / "Dislocation" - 2:55 (7" and 12" 04/08/1978)
  • 1978 - "Quiet Men" - 3:15 / "Cross Fade" 2:56 (7" and 12" 20/10/1978)
  • 1981- "Slow Motion" / "Quiet Men" / Hiroshima Mon Amour (7" reissue)
  • 1981- "Slow Motion" / "Quiet Men" / "Hiroshima Mon Amour" / "Dislocation" (2 x 7" reissue, also issued on one-sided cassette)


with Nation 12:
  • 1990 - "Remember" /"Remember" (Sub Dub Mix) / "Listen to the Drummer" / "Remember" (12")
  • 1991 - "Electrofear" (Beastmix) - 4:20 / "Electrofear" (Shemsijo Mix) - 4:20 / "Electrofear" (Dogmix) - 3:56 (12")

Solo
  • 1980 - "Underpass" - 3:18 / "Film One" - 4:00 (7" 10/01/1980)
  • 1980 - "Underpass" (full length) - 3:56 / "He's a Liquid" (alternate) - 3:06 (12" promo 10/01/1980)
  • 1980 - "No-One Driving" (Remix) - 3:42 / "Glimmer" - 3:35 / "This City" - 3:05 / "Mr. No" 3:12 (double 7" 20/03/1980)
  • 1980 - "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...

    " - 3:12 / "20th Century" - 3:04 (7" 11/07/1980)
  • 1980 - "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...

    " - 3:17 / "A Long Time" - 3:49 (7" 29/10/1980)
  • 1981 - "Europe After the Rain" - 3:37 / "This Jungle" - 4:41 (7" 20/08/1981)
  • 1981 - "Europe After the Rain" - 3:59 / "This Jungle" - 4:41 / "You Were There" - 3:49 (12" 20/08/1981)
  • 1981 - "Dancing Like a Gun" - 3:38 / "Swimmer 2" - 3:30 (7" 30/10/1981)
  • 1981 - "Dancing Like a Gun" - 4:11 / "Swimmer 1" - 5:08 / "Swimmer 2" - 3:30 (12" 30/10/1981)
  • 1982 - "Endlessly" - 3:51 / "Young Man" - 2:53 (7" 16/07/1982)
  • 1983 - "Endlessly" (Remix) - 4:18 / "A Kind of Wave" - 3:39 (7" 17/06/1983)
  • 1983 - "Endlessly" (Remix) - 4:18 / "Dance with Me" - 3:31 (7" 17/06/1983)
  • 1983 - "Endlessly" (Remix) - 4:18 / "Ghosts on Water" - 3:12 / "A Kind Of Wave" - 3:39 / "Dance with Me" - 3:31 (double 7" 17/06/1983)
  • 1983 - "Endlessly" (12" version) - 7:40 / "A Kind of Wave" (12" version) 4:58 (12" 17/06/1983)
  • 1983 - "Your Dress" - 3:59 / "Woman on a Stairway" - 4:28 (7" 15/09/1983)
  • 1983 - "Your Dress" - 3:59 / "Woman on a Stairway" - 4:28 / "The Lifting Sky" - 4:44 / "Annexe" - 3:04 (double 7" 15/09/1983)
  • 1983 - "Your Dress" - 4:26 / "The Garden" - 7:14 (12" 15/09/1983)
  • 1983 - "Like a Miracle" - 5:11 / "The Lifting Sky" - 4:44 (7" and 12" 28/10/1983)
  • 1983 - "Like a Miracle" (extended version) - 8:11 / "Wings & a Wind" - 5:17 (7" and 12" 28/10/1983)
  • 1985 - "Stars on Fire" - 4:52 / "What Kind of a Girl" - 4:40 (7")
  • 1985 - "Stars on Fire" - 4:52 / "What Kind of a Girl" - 4:40 / "City Of Light" - 3:38 / "Lumen de Lumine" - 2:36 (double 7")
  • 1985 - "Stars on Fire" - 7:15 / "City of Light" - 3:38 / "What Kind Of a Girl" - 4:56 (12")
  • 1985 - "Enter the Angel" - 3:58 / "Stairway" - 5:00 (7" 20/09/1985)
  • 1985 - "Enter the Angel" - 5:52 / "Stairway" - 5:54 (12" 20/09/1985)
  • 2004 - "Mr No" / "Mr No" (Joakim Remix) (12")
  • 2008 - "Burning Car" (20th Century) / "Burning Car" (Dubterror remix) (12" 22/09/2008)

Box sets

  • 2008 - Cinemascope

(Features Crash and Burn
Crash and Burn (John Foxx album)
Crash and Burn is the third studio album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2003.-Track listing:# "Drive" — 6:55# "Cinema" — 5:09# "Broken Furniture" — 5:25# "Crash and Burn" — 4:03# "Once in a While" — 4:10# "Sex Video" — 5:00...

, Cathedral Oceans III, Tiny Colour Movies
Tiny Colour Movies
-Background:Foxx attended a birthday celebration screening of a friend’s private film collection in Baltimore. The films in the collection were all short pieces collected from various sources, including surveillance agencies and Hollywood cutting room floors...

, From Trash
From Trash
From Trash is the fourth studio album by John Foxx and Louis Gordon, released in 2006. Further material from the same sessions was released during the same year as Sideways.-Track listing:# "From Trash" — 4:34# "Freeze Frame" — 3:57...

, Electrofear and the second edition of the Cathedral Oceans DVD.)
The albums and DVD are re-packaged in cardboard wallets, featuring alternative artwork to the original pressings. Six art prints of John Foxx's artwork are also included.

External links

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