John Foxx

John Foxx (b. 1948 Chorley, UK ) is a singer, musician and songwriter best known for being the founder member and leader of the band Ultravox! (later Ultravox) and for his solo work mostly in electronic music. After releasing three albums with Ultravox! on Island records, Foxx left the group while on tour in the US in early 1979 in order to record his debut solo album Metamatic, using mostly synthesisers and drum machines with the songs characterised by Foxx's glacial vocals. The album is now considered a seminal work in the development of electronica, and spawned the singles Underpass and No-One Driving both of which featured on Top of the Pops. After releasing a third fully electronic single Burning Car in the summer of 1980, and My Face, a flexi-disc for Smash Hits magazine, Foxx moved away from the UK to travel around Europe, mostly Italy. His second solo album The Garden signaled a return to the use of conventional instruments integrated with synthesisers, reminiscent of his final album with Ultravox Systems of Romance (1978). After issuing two more less successful albums (The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways) Foxx retired from the music scene in order to concentrate on his career as a graphic artist and lecturer under his real name of Dennis Leigh.

In 1997 that Foxx made his return to music, releasing two albums of new material at the same time that year. While Shifting City goes back to the pure electronic sounds of Metamatic, and would be the first of a series of studio albums issued with Manchester musician and songwriter Louis Gordon, Cathedral Oceans, a solo work, mixes piano, electronic instruments and vocal effects in an "ambient" style album, accompanied by Foxx's striking images of classical portrait sculpture merged with natural subjects. A second and third volume of the Cathedral Oceans series were released in 2003 and 2005 respectively.

In the meantime Foxx had begun to tour extensively with Gordon, releasing in parallel with a handful of studio albums two live albums Retro Future (2007), Neuro Video (2008) and  A New Kind of Man (2008), the latter a live performance of the 1980 Metamatic album and related tracks. In 2009 Foxx began a new collaborative musical project with synthesiser wizard Benge, under the collective name of John Foxx And the Maths. New tracks were previewed at the Short Circuit electronic music festival, curated by Foxx himself, at The Roundhouse in London on 5 June 2010. Their debut album Interplay was released on Metamatic Records in March 2011, closely followed by The Shape of Things the same year and Evidence in 2012.

As well as the Cathedral Oceans series Foxx has continued to produce further solo work - most notably Tiny Colour Movies (2006), My Lost City (2009), B-Movie (Ballardian Video Neuronica) (2014) and London Overgrown (2015). He has also collaborated with other musicians and composers such as Harold Budd, Jori Hulkonnen, Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), Steve D'Agostino and Steve Jansen (Japan).

In 2017 John Foxx and the Maths released The Machine, an album developed form incidental music composed for the theatrical representation of E. M. Forster's short story "The Machine Stops".

Links to Peel
After having championed Ultravox! (who received little airplay elsewhere) Peel continued to follow Foxx's solo career by playing various tracks, including B-sides, during 1980. However he gave scarce attention to the follow-up The Garden. Foxx did not record any solo BBC sessions for Peel although performances for BBC Saturday Live in 1983 and 1985 were broadcast. He has also performed live with Louis Gordon on Janice Long's show in 2006.

Sessions
Foxx did not record any Peel sessions as a solo artist although an Ultravox! session was recorded in 1977 on the release of their second album Ha! Ha! Ha!

Other shows played
03 January 1980 - Underpass (7" single) Metal Beat/Virgin

16 January 1980 - He's A Liquid (album Metamatic) Virgin V2146

21 January 1980 - Metal Beat (album Metamatic) Virgin V2146

19 March 1980 - Mr. No (No-One Driving 2x7", B-side) Virgin / Metal Beat VS 338

27 March 1980 - Glimmer (No-One Driving 7" B-side) Virgin / Metal Beat VS 338

10 July 1980 - Burning Car (7") Virgin / Metal Beat VS 360

21 September 1981 - Systems of Romance (album The Garden) Virgin V 2194