Shifting City [Import]

John Foxx | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 15, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Metamatic UK
• ASIN: B00000DFEG
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,324 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Noise

2. Crash

3. Here We Go

4. Shadow Man

5. Through My Sleeping

6. Forgotten Years

7. Everyone

8. Shifting City

9. Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible

10. An Ocean We Can Breathe

Editorial Reviews

Digitally remastered and expanded edition of this 1997 album from Electronic music pioneer John Foxx and his frequent collaborator Louis Gordon. Shifting City was the first work created by Foxx and fellow Mancunian musician Gordon, and was released following Foxx's lengthy break from music. Disc One contains the complete album plus three previously unreleased bonus tracks. Disc Two of this special re-issue contains The Omnidelic Exotour, recorded live by Foxx and Gordon at A Certain Ratio's Warehouse in Ancoats, Manchester and at Metamatic Studio in 1997. 26 tracks. Edsel. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A triumphant return from the master of electronic pop., April 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shifting City (Audio CD)

This is the best album John Foxx has released since his groundbreaking Metamatic in 1980. A brilliant fusion of electronica and classic pop melodies.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Transition Complete, October 20, 1999

By 

C. Smith "cyberbare" (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shifting City (Audio CD)

At last John Foxx, with Louis Gordon makes the transistion between metal machine music and traditional music. Having flirted with the use of feedback, with Ultravox! with their final Lp "Systems Of Romance" Foxx matches, neigh surpases previous releases with the industrial "The Noise" the beatlesesque "Shifting City" and the breezy, "An ocean we can Breathe" All excellent and certainly worth the money, you'll not buy a better CD of this genre.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best John Foxx albums of all time, August 5, 2006

By 

Elusive Adhesive "free spirit" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shifting City (Audio CD)

Those who loved John Foxx's seminal 1980 album "Metamatic" will find "Shifting City" a triumphant return to that form. Five stars doesn't seem like enough.

Shifting City is a dark, dystopian soundscape. And yet one that is haunted by the ghost of romance. Harshness coexists with a nostalgic warmth. Deep, distorted beats, static, strange but compelling sound effects, and Foxx's fragmented, mysterious lyrics create an unforgettable atmosphere. This would have made a great soundtrack to Blade Runner - or any other movie version of a Philip K. Dick novel.

Foxx's penchant for releasing ambient albums with no vocals is a bit odd to me, considering that he is one of the great lyricists of the 20th (and 21st) century. Happily, Shifting City makes full use of his eloquence. "Shadow Man", arguably the best track on the album, projects a series of bizarre, disturbing, dreamlike images:

"There's a woman asleep
And her skin's like smoke
She loses form
As he loses hope..."

And:

"And he turns to go
He can never leave
And his eyes dissolve
He can hardly breathe..."

Foxx's unique, surrealist perspective, where the world and everything in it seem to be pieces in an eternally changing kaleidoscope, make his lyrics and his music so fascinating. You see or hear something different in them every time.

Shifting City does not suffer from the occasional overindulgence and lack of drive that are a minor annoyance on some of Foxx's other albums. This may be the influence of Louis Gordon. The album feels tighter, stronger and more focused than the other albums.

I keep returning to this one again and again. A must for any John Foxx fan, or anyone interested in the more creative possibilities of electronic music.