John Foxx / John Foxx With Louis Gordon - The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour flac mp3 download

Two good live recordings of concerts from two different eras in Foxx’s music. The “Golden Section” tour CD has nine tracks recorded in 1983. Newer listeners to Foxx’s music will notice the lack of tracks from Foxx’s Metamatic album, although there are a few “Ultravox!” tracks such as “Slow Motion” and “The Quiet Men”. The sound of the recording is very much in the same vane as the rest of his mid eighties output. You will hear lots of bass guitar and Simmonds drum fills - the sound of that era! I remember seeing this concert on a dodgy VHS years ago and seeing Foxx’s ARP solo near the end of “The Hidden Man” it goes on a bit, but Foxx fans will probably love the sound of a soaring eighties Odyssey solo. “Slow Motion sounds good and includes Robin Simon on guitar making it sound true to the original; “The Quiet Man” on the other hand has funk bass all over it making it warmer that the colder sequencer version released a few years earlier. The second disc contains the later “Omnidelic Exotour” concert recorded in 1997 around the time when Foxx was first reviving his colder Metamatic style of recording. The recording opens with a version of “20th Century” staying in the style of it’s original b-side release; it keeps you interested while listening to the many different analogue soundscapes. “Underpass” turns into “Overpass” that melts into an excellent version of “This City”; we are returning to the colder car crash era of Foxx’s solo work. There are a couple of “Ultravox!” standards to keep the older fans happy, with a pitter patter version of “Hiroshima Mon Amour” staying minimal with warm strings and Foxx’s distant vocal; it catches the sound of the original without moving too far away from the rest of the set. The inclusion of “Dislocation” is a welcome choice; it does begin to sound like we are back in 1978 at the Marquee – until the next track pushes its way into the set. I don’t know about many people but I didn’t quite get into the Beatles inspired Foxx tracks of the early Foxx/Gordon period. I always thought the duo could have recorded some colder harder tracks – but that came later on. The only exception was “The Noise”; that track was going places and should have had better promotion at the time, as I think it was one of the stronger tracks of the period. Sorry but “Shifting City” always goes on too much and got me wanting to leave early and get the tube home. This double CD will obviously appeal to the Foxx fan and is actually a good record of two periods in Foxx’s musical live. Both concerts are listenable and fit well in this CD package.