Ultravox

1977 is a pivotal year in the history of rock: it is, by definition, the year of new wave. Progressive rock, in its original form, has by now fallen into decline, while electronic music is increasingly becoming popular fare, thanks to the release of Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express". A new experimental universe is about to descend on the scene, with David Bowie's "Heroes" set to reach one of its highest peaks. And punk is also on its way, courtesy of the Sex Pistols and their "Never Mind The Bollocks", the Ramones and the Clash with their self-titled debuts.

This is a decisive crossroads in the very conception of rock music: what had, until just a few years earlier, been elite material for talented intellectuals, becomes once again a purely creative art form, free from schemes and academic notions.

1977 was talked about as the year when every month brought a new piece of the puzzle, contributing to the evolution of rock's "new wave". Even before the musicians mentioned above and the explosion of their torpedoes, the blessing on that epic saga came from a quintet from the London suburbs, who viscerally anticipated much of what would become the founding cornerstones of new wave: John Foxx, Chris Cross, Warren Cann, Billy Currie and Steve Shears. Ultravox! were thus, for many reasons, the silent originators of new wave, as well as the hub where all the influences that would later shape that movement's sonic coordinates first converged.

Released less than a year apart, the first two chapters of the band's saga share a common denominator: the presence of Steve Lillywhite, who thanks to these two productions would launch a stellar career, eventually becoming one of the most celebrated and important producers of the entire movement. But on the first of the two albums, joining him at the controls is also Brian Eno, who would close out the musical year with the treatise "Before And After Science", the formal peak and prescient synthesis of an entire decade of music. What happens between Eno and the band is a genuine exchange of sonic vocabularies, with the guru handing the band - beyond the avant-glam sounds already expressed in the essential "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)" of 1974, and an intensification of the experimental elements already present in their sound - that kind of meticulous attention to recording detail, that dedication to the painstaking treatment of sonic and phonic nuance. What Ultravox gave back to the non-musician, meanwhile, are above all punk warning signs applied in a more "canonical" setting than that of the Sex Pistols, and geared more (though Eno also brought plenty of his own here) toward musical development than toward "ideological" development; these will resonate strongly in "Before And After Science", which in turn would set a standard later settled into, above all, by Talking Heads, while Wire would keep a firm grip on their ties to original punk.

The first "Ultravox!" is thus the melting pot into which the band throws all its ideas, an extraordinary record for its freshness and originality, capable of anticipating - recycling and inventing at the same time - trends that would soon become full-fledged standards. The two creative poles correspond to the figures of frontman John Foxx and keyboardist-violinist Billy Currie: the tension between the former's futurist spirit and the latter's romantic soul would be a confrontation destined to define the band's entire history. Their formula is a hybrid of several elements, all of equal importance and, for many, irreconcilable before their endeavor: the glam rock of Roxy Music, the kraut-rock of Neu! and Ash Ra Tempel, the electronics of Kraftwerk and, last but not least, a primordial form of punk. A genuine statement of intent, revealing the strength and freshness of the recipe put forward by the band, architects of new wave before new wave existed. But the five were not satisfied, and a few months later decided to refine their formula in what remains to this day their masterpiece and one of the most significant fruits of the entire seventies era: "Ha!-Ha!-Ha!".

Preceded by the misleading single "Young Savage" - which would instead prove an important clue pointing toward the sound of the band's future third album - this second work is the mature product of a group more aware of the path ahead and determined to put forward an even more personal and varied sound, focusing on different angles within each track. A further evolution is represented by the greater use of electronic instrumentation: whereas on the self-titled debut the rock matrix was largely dominant, with electronics used almost always as a secondary garnish, on "Ha!-Ha!-Ha!" it becomes a central element, on equal footing with guitars, bass and drums. Lillywhite returns, Brian Eno is gone, but the legacy left by the chemist of non-music still carries considerable weight.

The album contains a good deal of the expressive peaks of "early Ultravox", including the dissonant electronic punk of "Fear In The Western World", a theatrical, absurdist showcase with a marked streak of irony, and the Dadaist stride of "The Frozen Ones", which pits a carefree verse against a heartfelt, anguished chorus. The opening "ROckwrok" instead links back to the glories of the first album, once again draping Foxx and co. in glitter and sequins, while "Distant Smiles" emphasizes Currie's melodic romanticism, sealed by a long and touching acoustic piano introduction. But even more representative of the whole work are the Kraftwerk-esque synth-pop of "The Man Who Dies Every Day" - a raw, chilling little march for synth and guitar, a true one-off within the album, where Foxx dresses up as an android for the first time - and the electronic pastiche of "Artificial Life", which picks up where "I Want To Be A Machine" left off. To these must be added, without hesitation, the album's true masterpiece, and probably the band's finest moment altogether: that "Hiroshima Mon Amour", capable of blending a romantic soul with decadent despair across five of the most intense minutes in all of new wave, with Foxx in a state of grace as he brings together every element of the Ultravox sound and channels them into a chiaroscuro that is at once detached and deeply moving.

"Ha!-Ha!-Ha!" is a magnificent, otherworldly album and, especially when considered alongside its predecessor, the first great masterpiece of new wave. Rightly reassessed by history, the record was at the time snubbed by critics and, above all, by an audience not yet ready to appreciate its incredible sonic freshness. It would take the Sex Pistols with their punk revolution, and an artist already established in the glam world like David Bowie, to complete the transition begun by Foxx and co. - a transition never sufficiently credited to them. Across the two chapters that mark their rise, the five in fact managed to simultaneously foreshadow both the romantic wing of new wave (which would go on to include Japan, Simple Minds, Talk Talk and Duran Duran) and the colder, more synthetic side, ridden instead by Foxx himself, by Gary Numan and by the Human League. These two sides would be further developed, fused and set against each other on the third and final work of the band's first phase, "Systems Of Romance", which a year later would see them abandon punk and glam in favor of a full-on clash-and-embrace between electronics and romanticism. The total dominance of these last two elements should be read as a reflection of the ever-growing tension between Foxx and Currie, which would prove incredibly beneficial to the success of the record but would lead, in 1979, to the inevitable end of the Ultravox! saga.

Once that first chapter was over, Ultravox would carry on following Currie's love of decadence and romanticism, turning out a series of wonderful records (starting with the essential "Vienna"), among the finest expressions of eighties synth-pop. John Foxx, meanwhile, would launch a solo career of a thousand incarnations, indulging his passion for futurism on the icy masterpiece "Metamatic", a record whose influence on modern electronic music still goes largely unrecognized today.

Both of these adventures, exactly like those of their contemporaries and of today's nostalgics, could never have existed without the inventions and innovations of "Ultravox!", "Systems Of Romance" and, above all, "Ha!-Ha!-Ha!", the album that perhaps, more than any other, represents the birth of new wave.

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23/12/2012