Search - John Foxx :: From Trash

John Foxx and Mancunian Electro artist / DJ / producer Louis Gordon release "From Trash", their fourth album since meeting up just over 10 years ago, following the likes of "Shifting City" (1997), "The Pleasures of Electricity" (2001) and "Crash And Burn" (2003). While Foxx has increasingly experimented with ambient music via his long-running "Cathedral Oceans" project and collaborations with the likes of Harold Budd and Steve Jansen (ex-Japan), "From Trash" takes him right back to his electronic-rock roots. "Friendly Fire" fuses the Glitter Band with Iggy Pop and Reproduction-era The Human League, creating a retro-electro stomp with a barbed 21st Century lyric. The exquisite "Never Let Me Go" recalls Laurie Anderson but with a more emotional twist and the title track swarms with ?alien invader? comic book imagery while also alluding to the strangeness of Foxx?s own move from working class Chorley in Lancashire to London in the 1970's. The hypnotic "Impossible" also deals with claustrophobia and the hope of escape - perhaps to the glimmering metropolis celebrated in "A Room A Big As A City" which is full of Kraftwerkian synthesizers but possesses a more personal and intimate atmosphere than anything attempted by the manmachiners. Arguably the most striking track on "From Trash" is "A Million Cars", a Sinatra-like glorification of the city, boosted with electro power-chords and a melodramatic croon from Foxx.