Into Battle With The Art Of Noise [Collector's Edition, Extra tracks, Original recording remastered]

This is where it all started. The first ZTT release. The first item in the Incidental Series. The first Art of Noise release. Into Battle sprang from progressive rock (the group had all been working together on the Yes album 90125), but it wasn t prog. It came from the team that made pop hit singles, but it wasn t pop. It went to number one in the US dance charts, but was it really dance music? It was actually an anomaly in the timeline of music; so abrupt and unexpected (but also so listenable) that, more than 25 years later, this 25-minute EP is remastered, expanded and reissued once more. The making of Into Battle is about a band dynamic developing at the same time as their first music. It s about how they decided not to be a band at all. It s about eschewing instruments in favour of samples. And about how the limits of the available technology shaped the music they made. But what happened next? The received wisdom is that Art of Noise then released their debut album (Who s Afraid?) and took over the world. But there was one stepping stone between these two great records that has been locked away in the vaults for more than 25 years: an album called Worship. Worship was the first attempt at turning six months worth of musical experimentation into an album. Like Into Battle, it takes more of a cut-up, collaged approach. With Worship, Art of Noise was set to dive deeper underground, experimenting freely. But then something unexpected happened. This subversive group of audio terrorists had a hit record. A hit record that would take them from behind the locked doors of their studio to the Top of the Pops studio, around the world, and make them a sonic reference point for a generation - such that when The Prodigy needed a hit record of their own, over a decade later, they built the Firestarter rhythm around this Art of Noise hit, Close (to the Edit) . With the curve-ball that was Close , Worship was stripped down, re-edited and compacted into something new and rather more straightforward for mainstream audiences. It became Who s Afraid of the Art of Noise? and the original Worship master tapes were locked away in a vault marked Do not open until Into Battle s 100th Anniversary (2083)/Into Battle deluxe reissue/Art of Noise induction into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame/ZTT Tate Modern installation/ whichever comes first . For the members (Anne Dudley/Trevor Horn/ JJ Jeczalik/ Gary Langan/ Paul Morley), the battle never ends. It s never really left the consciousness of those that recorded it, or those that heard it when it came out. It s been referenced ever since and, while it wasn t prog, pop or dance, it was and remains the trigger-point for new directions in all these genres. One of the most influential EPs of the last 30 years considerably expanded. Direct from the mysterious Art of Noise archive: 18 previously unreleased and uncannily prescient tracks from never-before-heard Worship album (1984). Includes the hit singles Beat Box, Moments In Love and Close (to the Edit). Digitally remastered from the original master tapes for superb sound quality. Deluxe digipack comes with superbly designed, full colour 12-page booklet containing extensive notes by compiler/curator Ian Peel.