John Foxx & The Maths

John Foxx bursts back on to the scene to promote his new release

The original lead singer with Ultravox (they were initially known as Ultravox! but dropped the exclamation mark…) before being replaced by Midge Ure in 1979, Jon Foxx, aka Dennis Leigh, embarked on a solo career in 1979, while pursuing a parallel career in graphic design and education. A truly seminal figure in the pioneering musical fields of electronic synthesiser music, Foxx’s status is that of a bona fide cult artist, a musician who while never attaining much in the way of commercial success post-Ultravox, has nevertheless carved out a career as an impeccably uncompromising artist.

Now 63, “I’ve been around since the ’60s,” he laughs. “I started playing around with tape recorders and synthesisers even then [when he was at the Royal College of Art].” It’s this love of ‘synthesised’ music that has informed most of his music, although during the ’70s he did flirt with glam rock, punk and new wave music. His first proper band, Tiger Lily, featured future Ultravox member Billy Currie, before morphing into Ultravox! in the sumer of ’76. But it was during this time as Ultravox that the use of synthesisers (and possibly the first recorded instance of the Roland TR-77) became prominent on their recordings.

Their third album, Systems Of Romance, and last with John Foxx, is regarded as the first ‘synth-pop’ album and was a huge influence on other bands who came in the wake including Gary Numan. “Drum machine, synths, distance, minimalism – we’d got to the next era while punk was burning itself out. This was what Joy Division’s Ian Curtis and many others picked up on. I guess it became a sort of blueprint for lots of bands,” says Foxx.

Foxx gave up performing in public in the early ’80s, and, while still making music, forged a career as a graphic artist but the nascent sounds of Detroit techno gave him the inspiration to record again. “I was just totally bored with music in the ’80s – I felt that there was nothing out there that inspired me… but the sounds of Detroit and Europe techno re-awakened my love of music.”

Listening to the most recent Foxx offering, The Shape Of Things, it seems everything has come full circle – within its generally minimalist grooves lies the heartbeats of Kraftwerk, Detroit techno, ambient music, early Ultravox, and touches of PiL. It’s still industrial in sound, and yet still retains a romantic and earthly quality.

For the last two years Foxx has collaborated with Benge, with two albums under their belt, Interplay and soon-to-be-released The Shape of Things,
re-establishing Foxx among the artrocker fraternity as a musical pioneer of venerable status.

John Foxx & The Maths, Friday 24 February, The Haunt, £20