Art Of Noise: The Seduction Of Claude Debussy

With its electronic, beat-driven soundscapes and innovative use of samples, Art Of Noise helped pave the way for today's electronic music. But after a decade of silence, aside from a stream of reissues and remix collections, is there any place for a reunited Art Of Noise in the new musical world order The Seduction Of Claude Debussy—the group's first album since 1989 and the first with its original Anne Dudley/Trevor Horn-led lineup since before then—neatly sidesteps that question through willful peculiarity. Rather than delivering a grand statement from a returning pioneer, Art Of Noise has returned with a concept album about the impressionist composer Debussy, which is probably the last thing anyone could have predicted. Gleefully, knowingly pretentious, Seduction uses its concept loosely. John Hurt pops up occasionally to provide some details from Debussy's life, but the music itself doesn't seem particularly impressionistic. If anything, Art Of Noise seems primarily influenced here by its old work: Aside from some state-of-the-moment dance beats, Seduction tends to sound old-fashioned, but given that it's old-fashioned in a way that hearkens back to the group's anything-goes approach (which allowed for collaborations with everyone from Duane Eddy to Tom Jones to Max Headroom), that's not really a bad thing. One track here, "Rapt: In The Evening Air," even brings in Rakim for a guest rap that includes a reference to Baudelaire. As that fact might suggest, Seduction, like Art Of Noise's biggest hits, relies an awful lot on novelty value; either you want to hear an hour-long Debussy tribute in experimental-synth-pop form, or you don't. But if you do, The Seduction Of Claude Debussy is the best one to come out so far this year.