JOHN FOXX AND THE MATHS – THE MACHINE – METAMATIC

The latest collision course for John Foxx and Benge – who is essentially ‘The Maths’ – is a less beat driven one than previous albums, but the end product is every bit as powerful as the song-based albums the pair have worked on in the past. Here there is a deep sense of loss and departure in Foxx’s writing, which brings in strong elements of the ‘Cathedral Oceans’ writing for synths – ambient and yet with harmonies that suggest otherwise. There are sparse but beautiful textures that have a distinctly elegiac feel here, with silvery treble lines that extend their tendrils across the expansive textures. Even those tracks with beats, such as ‘Transworld Travelogue’, have a withdrawn feel, and then on ‘Memory Oxide’ Foxx himself appears with a ghostly vocal. ‘Vortex Logic’ suggests the pain of medical treatment, but the closing ‘Orphan Waltz’ offers more consolation to finish a record that is every bit as compelling as anything in Foxx’s output.
Ben Hogwood
4 out of 5