Art Of Noise Reconstructed… For Your Listening Pleasure (2003) Sacd

This live recording of The Art of Noise is based in the era following the release of "The Seduction of Claude Debussy". As such, it contains much of the narrative threads that tied that album together, but also attempts to weave other Art of Noise favorites (such as "Moments in Love") into the mix.
It might have been more fun to watch on video, to see what was happening onstage, and perhaps to feel more like one of the crowd watching. Without that, we have a concept album that's been chopped up, interspersed with crowd noise, and had a couple of "Greatest Hits" inserted here and there…

The place for Art of Noise neophytes to start, Daft collects (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art of Noise! and Into Battle with the Art of Noise, along with two reworkings of "Moments in Love" from the original U.K. release of that song, to make a fantastic hour's worth of music. If anything, a single or two aside, Daft beats out the official Best Of compilation by a mile. Having aged superbly with time, AON's early works sound all the more advanced and of the moment, a testament especially to Trevor Horn's excellent production and Anne Dudley's gripping arrangements. Further entertainment comes from the liner notes, which aren't merely state-of-the-art 1984 album design but an apparently barbed attack on the further incarnation of the band from one Otto Flake…