POP MUSIC doesn t so much forge ahead as periodically loop back on itself. When The Art Of Noise (formed around a nucleus of producer Trevor Horn, former NME writer/New Pop-theorist Paul Morley and the studio team that masterminded Malcolm McLaren s Duck Rock ) first emerged as part of the Zang Tuum Tumb label that also launched Frankie Goes To Hollywood in 1983, their methods might have been considered unorthodox to the point of eccentricity. Here was an instrumental dance act with a sound based on layers of samples and random noises, prone to releasing endless remixes of their music, hiding behind an amorphous collective identity, their videos and record sleeves a maze of abstract graphics.
However, since the advent of acts like Orbital, The Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, such backroom carry-on has become commonplace. And now, these Art-ists (currently numbering Morley, Horne, Anne Dudley and Lol Creme the original line-up split into two factions after the release of the album Who s Afraid Of the Art Of Noise in 1984) have reformed to produce The Seduction Of Claude Debussy, a record described as being about, because of and for the life and music of the French composer.
Seduction is the key word here: the album is an enchanting, epical synthesis of subtle drum n bass pulses, classical and operatic motifs and spoken word monologues, espousing the musical manifestos of a Parisian who, to quote the album s opening suite Il Pleure (At The Turn Of The Century) , is considered the revolutionary who set 20th century music on its way .
Still though, let s take a reality check: Debussy and The Art Of Noise in 1999?
We d had a few ideas to get Art Of Noise back together again, doing The Life And Death Of JG Ballard, a couple of things, Paul Morley explains. And Anne Dudley and Trevor Horn had had quite a fascination for Claude Debussy for all sorts of musical reasons. We kinda like the idea that a lot of people these days only go back about 10 or 15 years for their influences, so you re retreading Mod or r n b or whatever. We thought it might be quite good to sum up the 20th century by going back to someone who d actually invented a lot of the musical techniques and styles that influenced the whole century.
Included amongst the wide palate of sounds employed on The Seduction Of Claude Debussy are the voices of guests such as Donna Lewis, Rakim, Sally Bradshaw and John Hurt, whose narration provides the thematic backbone of the piece.
We kind of had the idea for weaving some text in just to give some sort of symbolism to our vague story about Debussy, Morley indicates, just to pinpoint some of his theories which I kind of liked. He sort of reminds me of a 19th century Brian Eno sometimes, in some of the things he was saying. He was thinking very seriously about music, so we wanted to represent that a little bit. And he (Hurt) was just so unbelievably delighted and committed to it, he really wanted to do it because he felt it was worthwhile.
Furthermore, Morley concedes that it was important to highlight the influence Debussy had on so many jazz artists, and to follow that line to its conclusion in jungle rhythms.
Absolutely, he confirms. A lot of that came out of experiments we were having with Debussy s music. It was interesting that if you doubled up the rhythm under a particular track, you ended up with what has become known as drum n bass. Although we were horrified, because on paper that looked dreadful it gives you feelings of David Bowie and Sting doing drum n bass, it slightly curdles the stomach.
But Debussy s music was so radical. If you do that to other composers, it does sound a bit Hooked On Classics, whereas the beauty of Debussy and the fact that you can see traces of him in Miles Davis, Gil Evans, John Coltrane and Brian Eno, even the Cocteau Twins is that as much as the rhythms change through the decades, his music can still hold quite modern rhythms, 100 years later. And of course, he set up a lot of the rules of jazz in the early days I used to love the fact that Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz would all sit around in a Manhattan apartment in the 50s and talk about Debussy. It seemed another good tradition to carry on, that the four members of The Art Of Noise would sit in a darkened room and do the same. n
The Seduction Of Claude Debussy is released on June 14th on ZTT