After leaving Ultravox in the late 70’s, John Foxx (real name: Dennis Leigh)has released a few synth-pop albums in the first half of the 80’s (most notably Metamatic and The Garden), disappeared for about ten years before miraculously resurfacing and releasing a stream of albums on his own Metamatic label.
Among these albums are collaborations with well-known musicians like Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie.
Harold Budd probably needs no further introduction here. Ever since his name became well-known by the release of “The Plateaux of Mirror” (the second and perhaps most accessible part of the 4-part series released by Brian Eno that introduced ‘ambient music’ to a new audience around 1980), he has released a steady flow of albums – some more inspired than others, but all of them succesfull in creating a comforting and pleasurable background atmosphere.
On this massive 3CD set called “Nighthawks, Translucence and Drift Music” (totalling 2 1/2 hours), Budd dominates with his characteristic peaceful piano sound, effectively treated and layered by Foxx’s electronics.
In fact, only Nighthawks (additionally featuring Ruben Garcia on piano) is a new release: the other two (Translucence and Drift Music) were previously released as a double CD-set in 2003 and are remastered for this release.
Though they originally were not intended to be released as a single set, the music on these albums fit together very well.
Luckily for those that bought the original set, this is not as bad as it sounds: since this release is reasonably priced so it’s still worth buying the set for just the new album alone.
A real treat for anyone interested in the classic Harold Budd/John Foxx “Comfort Zone Ambient”!
John Foxx, Harold Budd, Ruben Garcia – Nighthawks