John Foxx

**John Foxx** (b. Dennis Leigh, 1948) is a British songwriter, musician, vocalist, graphic artist, photographer and teacher from Chorley, UK. He is best known as the former leader and founder of post-punk group Ultravox! and for his pioneering work in electronic music as a solo artist beginning in 1980 with the album *Metamatic*, recorded and released after leaving Ultravox in 1979.

## 1980s

After initial success with his debut album, including Top 40 singles Underpass and No-One Driving, and non-album track Burning Car in 1980, Foxx quickly abandoned the totally electronic approach to music integrating more conventional rock instrumentation as well as elements of psychedelia in successive albums *The Garden* (1981) and The Golden Section (1983). He retired from the music scene after releasing his fourth solo album *In Mysterious Ways* in 1985.

## 1990s onwards

Foxx returned in 1997 with an ambient instrumental album *Cathedral Oceans* (which would become the first in a series of three) and returning again to electronica together with Louis Gordon, with the album *Shifting City*. He also began live work with Gordon, releasing several more albums as a duo until 2008. Foxx continued to release his own solo, mostly instrumental albums, notably *Tiny Colour Movies* (2006) and *My Lost City* (2008), the latter being a re-visitation of work he had begun in the early 1980s. Around 2010 he began working with analogue synthesiser guru Benge and began releasing material as John Foxx and the Maths. The duo, with occasional collaborators both in the studio and live, released their last album *Howl* in 2020.

Foxx has also released his long-awaited written work *The Quiet Man* (2020) both as a collection of short stories based around the titular character, and spoken word audio releases, firstly in 2009, read by Justin Barton, together with a new piano score by Foxx and more recently as *The Marvellous Notebook* (2022) read by the author himself. In 2023 he released two solo albums, featuring mostly piano music, *Avenham* and *The Arcades Project*.

Other notable collaborations include those with musician Harold Budd (1936-2020), Finnish electronic musician Jori Hulkkonen, Steve D'Agostino and Steven Jansen (formerly of Japan), Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and The Belbury Circle.

Foxx is also a visual artist and has produced several book covers, and more recently his own sculptures.

TV
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### Top of Pops

* 31 January 1980 - Underpass (47)
* 27 March 1980 - No-One Driving
* 03 September 1981 - Europe After the Rain

### Other

* *20th Century Box* (1980) - theme tune (later released as 20th Century)
* 26 July 1980 - Fun Factory (Granada) - Burning Car
* 26 September 1983 - *Riverside* (BBC2)
* 02 April 1985 - *Whistle Test* 'Hindsight' feature

## Radio

* 20 June 1985 - Radio 1 session for Janice Long
* 18 July 2006 - radio 2 session for Janice Long (with Louis Gordon)
* 03 October 2011, 31 January 2012, 11 October 2012, 27 August 2013, 27 July 2015, 06 May 2016, 01 June 2018, 31 May 2020 (all Radcliffe & Maconie, 6 Music); 26 August 2012 (Nemone, 6 Music), 07 April 2013 (Mary Ann Hobbes); 18 April 2018 (Steve Lamacq)

## Scrapbook

*Smash Hits*, Feb.1980*Record Mirror*, April 1980NME, 1980*Record Mirror*, Sep.1985

## See also

* Midge Ure
* Billy Currie
* *Systems of Romance* (Ultravox album)
* Riverside
* *Construction Time Again* ‎(Depeche Mode album)

## External links

* John Foxx discography on Wikipedia
* Discogs
* Musicbrainz