1984 single by Art of Noise
"Close (to the Edit)" is a single by English avant-garde synth-pop group Art of Noise, released in 1984 by ZTT Records. The song appeared on the group's 1984 album Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? and different versions were issued on various other formats in October of that year. It was closely related to their earlier single (and hip hop club hit) "Beat Box", though the two tracks were developed as separate pieces from an early stage. The single reached number eight in the UK singles chart in February 1985, and its music video won two awards at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards. The song's spoken word "Hey!" has been sampled by a number of other artists through the years.
History
The first release of a version of "Close (to the Edit)" was as a nominal remix of "Beat Box" under the title "Beat Box (Diversion Two)". This was then re-edited and partly remixed with different effects applied, to become the version of "Close (to the Edit)" which appeared on the subsequent studio album Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? (1984). Paul Morley's sleevenotes for the single simplify the relationship between "Diversion Two" and "Close", noting only that 20 seconds were "snipped out".
The song takes its title from the studio album Close to the Edge (1972) by Yes, and also samples "Leave It" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by the same band, the latter two of which Trevor Horn produced.[3] The single heavily features the recorded sample of a car, a Volkswagen Golf owned by a neighbour of band member J. J. Jeczalik, stalling and restarting. It also contains a (re-sung)[citation needed] vocal sample from the song "Beer Barrel Polka", as performed by the Andrews Sisters.
The short spoken-word vocal and the "Hey!" sample – used in a number of songs, most notably in "Firestarter" by the Prodigy and "Back in the Day" by Christina Aguilera (uncredited) – was the voice of Camilla Pilkington-Smyth.[4] Jeczalik's girlfriend at the time taught at a girls school in Ascot and brought Pilkington-Smyth, one of her pupils, to his attention. The sample of her voice was recorded by Jeczalik in a chapel using a ReVox A777 tape recorder.[5]
The single was released in the UK on what had become ZTT's customary array of formats: standard and picture disc 7-inch versions, five 12-inch singles (one a picture disc) and a cassette single, each featuring a number of unique mixes. The many remixes were given their own titles derived from the overall title, including "Edited", "Closely Closely (Enough's Enough)" and "Close-Up".
The cassette single version, That Was Close, is a medley of a number of the mixes from the various formats, featuring "Diversion Eight", "Diversion Two", "Closest", "Close-Up", the album version of "Close (to the Edit)" and "Closed". This medley lasts in excess of 20 minutes in length, repeats on both sides of the cassette, and remained otherwise unavailable until it was included in its entirety on the 4-CD box set compilation And What Have You Done with My Body, God? (2006).
The single was Art of Noise's first major UK hit, reaching number eight in the UK singles chart in February 1985.
Music videos
Three promotional videos were recorded for the single. The original version, featuring a little girl in punk garb leading three business suit-clad men in the destruction of various musical instruments, was directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński. In a 1999 interview with the band, Paul Morley said, "The male members of the band were slightly disturbed that they were made to come off as Huey Lewis and the News ... so one of the reasons we tend to hide behind masks or not appear at all is because it opens up more possibilities how Art of Noise can be presented. Sometimes you had video art directors get excited about how they were going to present Art of Noise, and in that particular case, he interpreted it as a strange young girl with Huey Lewis & The News. Half of it was fun and half of it was slightly sad." Anne Dudley "thought it was a fun video", but added that "some people thought it was unnecessarily violent. It was banned in New Zealand as encouraging violence towards children. Nothing could have been further from our minds."[6] The video later won the awards for Most Experimental Video and Best Editing at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards.[7]
A second video version directed by Matt Forrest aired in the UK, composed almost entirely of surreal animation,[8] with some clips from the original version.
A third video version, mostly identical to the second video version, included various shots of the band in-studio.
Legacy
In a 2003 article on the greatest musique concrète for Pitchfork, musician Drew Daniel of Matmos included "Close (To the Edit)" in a list of works that arguably built upon musique concrète in new ways.[9] Simon Reynolds highlighted the manner in which the music video provided a "witty visual emblem" for the group's "updated version of musique concrète's slice-and-dice methods."[10] He also noted that the song can be contextualised as "a homage to Kraftwerk and their 'Autobahn'-era notion of the car as a musical instrument", due to the use of a revving motor as a melodic riff throughout Art of Noise's hit.[10] The track is classified as sound collage by writer Robert Fink, who notes that the track features the 'ORCH5' orchestral hit which, in its final moments, mixes "back into congeries of sampled orchestral blasts from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring."[11] Danny Turner of MusicRadar commented that the track highlights Art of Noise's "clever use of disembodied vocal samples and found sounds", and noted that it "arguably featured the first ever sampled and sequenced bass line."[12]
Live performance
The track was performed live by Horn and Anne Dudley during Horn's 2004 all-star charity event Produced by Trevor Horn (later released on DVD as Slaves to the Rhythm), celebrating Horn's 25th anniversary as a record producer. The performance featured Yes's Alan White on drums and 10cc's Lol Creme on guitar. Almost all of the elements of it (except for a spoken phrase by Camilla Pilkington-Smyth, which was pre-recorded) were live, as opposed to programmed or sequenced: Horn played his elaborate bass part on a 5-string bass, Dudley played live synths and triggered all the samples from the original track (including the "dum-dum" chant) from a Roland keyboard, the "tra-la-la" vocals (originally an Andrews Sisters sample) were sung live by Linda Allen and Debi Doss of Buggles fame, all the other instruments were played by members of the onstage orchestra, and the whole piece was played faster than the original (about 135-136 BPM rather than 129). Indeed, Horn introduced the performance by emphasizing the live nature of it and stating that, since the original piece was "played by machines" (i.e. programmed), the band would introduce some deliberate mistakes to prove that everybody was live. In fact, the actual performance does not include any mistakes, but some of Dudley's melodic synth lines are slightly different from the studio version.[13]
Former Art of Noise members J. J. Jeczalik and Gary Langan do not feature in the performance, nor does music journalist and MC Paul Morley. In spite of this, the track is listed on the DVD cover and menu as being performed by Art of Noise.
