John Foxx’s seminal debut solo album Metamatic is released as a 3CD Deluxe Edition today (25/05/18).

The reissue will include a remastered version of the original 10-track album, B-sides, alternative mixes, instrumentals, copies of Foxx’s notes from the period – which included lists of possible track titles and handwritten lyrics – as well as previously unseen photos, rare drawings and illustrations by Foxx himself.

Originally released in January 1980, Metamatic reached Number 18 in the charts and signified a point when stark, minimalist electronic music was just starting to mainline into a bigger audience from an underground scene. The record went on to influence the likes of Gary Numan, The Human League, The Magnetic Fields and even film director Alex Proyas (The Crow, I,Robot and Dark City).

Metamatic expresses some of the future-shocks and inspirations of the last century, the effects of which are still with us today – surrealism; high rises; cinema; the work of JG Ballard; the growth of cities; psychedelia; British Art School culture in the 1970s; TV; film noir; life in Britain after the Second World War; automobiles and the spread of motorways and highways; the collapse of industry in the North of England leading to overgrown urban dystopias; the Futurists; Satie; Krautrock; William Burroughs; Duchamp and dub reggae.

You can buy the Metamatic Deluxe Edition here.