The third most sampled band ever, the Art of Noise, made ground breaking electronic music in the eighties and now their peers from a decade on have reworked eleven tracks on The Drum and Bass Collection.

This CD can be listened to on two levels: as a compilation of drum and bass tracks with a common influence, or as a game of trainspotting, where one tries to work out which bits of the original version of the song have been sampled/mutated/used where and how, in each remix. The latter actually proves quite difficult. But an excellent compilation of remixes it is. Just as the tracks that spawned these remixes vary in mood and dance floor friendliness, so do the remixes themselves: From the floating, dreamlike version of Something Always Happens by Doc Scott, to the gronking and chunky Kiss reworked by Digital Pariah. Seiji's twitchy rendition of Island is one for advanced listeners as it stumbles between dub and jungle velocities. While some tracks are more dance oriented, all are definitely very drum and bass so the album is great listening - guaranteed to keep you lively and tapping everything around you for hours afterwards.

I spoke with Gary Langan from the AoN and asked him why, after the earlier techno style FON Remixes and Ambient Collection discs had they chosen drum and bass as the next style:

"...with the Art of Noise people are beginning to discover our music: the guys who are making records now, when we were making music originally they would've been young and would've possibly been not that aware of us. Since they evolved it seems they discover our music. Then they approach us and say: 'can we make an album with you guys ?'..... This has happened quite a few times over our career - I never thought that this was going to happen back in '83, '84, .... that ten years down the line we were gonna get calls from people saying: 'could we?...may we?' ... its a fantastic way of us keeping ourselves going. We are fairly selective ... By choosing the people we work with we still retain... well, not control, but we can look after the destiny of where its being taken. Its got to show close good links to what we were about - and not every time they get it right. .... I think the way that we are portrayed now, where we can choose these people to remix our music is a more credible way of being about."

And on the path electronic music has taken during their career:

"I don't think it has really changed ... the people have. You look at the twelve inches we were producing ten years ago and they are not dissimilar to now. Keyboards have found a level in life and people are beginning to realize that they are possibly not the be all and end all of how to make records, just another tool you can use well. The AoN never stopped thinking about the fact that you needed a human input to kick the whole thing off. The underlying thing with anything the AoN did was that it had to be human form based before it could be fooled around with electronically. Where some people have gone wrong is they have forgotten about that.

Electronic music has a lot to answer for - it caused a big upset in the social way of making records. ... and I was very worried at one stage because everybody stopped ... communicating and made whole records in their bedrooms. But at least now you've got deejays out there working an audience and getting ideas from (that)."

And what about hardened AoN fans who may find the remixes too far from the originals ?

"I have always said art should make people question things, should provoke question. I think if someone presents you with a piece of artform that doesn't raise anything in you then that is when they have failed.

I think most people who buy this album will not be people who were buying the records the first time round and I hope it will be a trail of discovery for them. If I thought there was some sort of history behind it I would go looking next time I was down at the record store. No idea (what a persons reaction would be ) love to be a fly on the wall."

And on the future of electronic music:

"I'd really like to start fooling around with surround sound. Surround sound in the home system is not that far away from being economically viable. Give it two or three years and the prices are really gonna come down. Dolby Pro Logic ... that gives you five channels encoded onto one CDROM: left, center, right, left rear and right rear. And once the PC comes in and stops being badly designed, makes its way into the lounge, then I do think your listening and watching world is going to start to change. And that's where we'd start fooling around again..." So we could see a surround sound CDROM artists interpretation of Art of Noise material in future, but for now we will have to make do with the Drum and Bass Collection.

Lex Luthor

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