Electronic Sound Issue 114 (Visual Art of John Foxx)

We’re investigating the visual art of John Foxx in this month’s Electronic Sound and we’re bundling the magazine with a white vinyl seven-inch combining two top-notch Foxx tracks – an electropop classic from 1980 and an ambient gem from 1997. While he is best known as the frontman of Ultravox and a revered solo musician in his own right, Foxx is also a highly distinctive visual artist. He has worked in photography, collage, graphic art and other media since the mid-1970s, and his extraordinary portfolio is detailed in a forthcoming book called ‘Electricity And Ghosts’. We've invited him to talk about some of his favourite pieces from the book, and the result is a fascinating glimpse into his artistic approach and the aesthetic principles he applies to both his imagery and his records. You could describe it as a sort of synthesis of John Foxx. We have a bumper selection of other great interviews elsewhere in this issue too, including Jeff Mills, John Grant, Suzanne Ciani, Orbital, Wolfgang Tillmans, Low End Activist, Keeley Forsyth and Chanel Beads. We also have a splendid new regular column called “The Best Of...”, which we think you’re going to really love. Our first volunteer is µ-Ziq man and Planet Mu label boss Mike Paradinas, who speaks about peaches, thigh-high socks and geek pies. As you do. To accompany the issue, we have an exclusive John Foxx seven-inch pressed on pristine white vinyl. The A-side is the soaring synth masterpiece ‘Miles Away’, which was initially released as a single in 1980, acting as a bridge between his ‘Metamatic’ and ‘The Garden’ albums. Flip the record over for ‘Sunset Rising’, a haunting piece from the first of Foxx’s three ‘Cathedral Oceans’ albums, which came out in 1997. The photo of an empty suit in an armchair on the cover of our seven-inch appears on the original picture sleeve of ‘Miles Away’ and also features in the ‘Electricity And Ghosts’ book. “I wanted it to look like a still from a long-lost movie,” he says. “It was dead right.”