Video of the week: The Art of Noise - Close to the Edit

It's rare that you'll find a video which acts as a perfect expression of a band's aesthetic, but it's unsurprising that The Art of Noise - a band that had pop theorist Paul Morley as a member and chief ideologue - is one of them.

In a post-industrial wasteland, a deserted railway station, classical instruments are destroyed by demolition tools, wielded by a trio of sinister figures and overseen by a small child. All in time to crushing mid-80's synth beats. It's the filmic equivalent of musique concrete gone pop, which was what early AON were all about.

Props to director and proper serious film-maker Zbigniew Rybczy.

Although apparently, as the following quote from Morley shows, the band didn't like it, which shows what I know.

"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."

And for a bonus Art of Noise video, here's Paranoimia, featuring the unique vocal stylings of Max Headroom - the world's first computer generated TV personality. :-)