February 2026

This curious little 3″ CD single of Heaven 17’s 1981 debut single, ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’, featuring three 12″ single mixes from their back catalogue, was released as part the Virgin CDT series, a series of re-issues of classic singles from the Virgin back catalogue on the then in-vogue 3″ CD single format. The series flagged the selling point of containing ‘12” versions previously unavailable on compact disc’ by way of a flash box printed at the foot of the front cover design. The covers were tiny replicas in keeping with the original sleeve designs for the most part, and came packaged in generic Virgin records clear plastic ‘blister pack’ covers, though the choice of tracks often had odd combinations of mixes, that were not necessarily quite the intended ’12” mix’ that the hype would have you believe.

Heaven 17 - 'Fascist Groove Thang' UK 3" CD front cover design in generic Virgin 3" CD single series plastic pack — ^ Heaven 17 – ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ UK 3″ CD front cover design in generic Virgin 3″ CD single series plastic pack

So, while on first sight this looks like it might include the original B side from the original single release, ‘The Decline of the West’, that is nowhere to be found and it instead included two other singles from 1981.

Tracklist:

(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang (4’53”)
I’m Your Money (Specially Fortified Dance Mix) (5’42”)
Height Of The Fighting (He-La-Hu) (Full Length 12″ Mix) (2’55”)

Continue reading “Heaven 17 ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ UK 3″ CD single (Virgin CDT21, 1988)”

After no less than three compilation releases during 2016, there was a gap in any further mining of the vaults for stand-alone compilations until 2020, which is where we pick up the story, though it should be noted that 2018 saw the ‘Metamatic’ CD box set release that presented to the world for the first time many hitherto unreleased recordings from the John Foxx archives. This featured compilation from 2020 would in fact relate directly to 2018’s deluxe re-issue of ‘Metamatic’…

‘Concrete and Organised Noise’ UK LP (Metamatic Records, META64LP, 2020)

Release date: 24 January 2020.

This compilation, intended as some kind of ‘related works’ companion piece in the ‘Metamatic’ universe, was pressed up as a limited edition of 500 copies, on grey vinyl. It comes styled in a wonderful sleeve design by Jonathan Barnbrook, very much in keeping with the ‘Metamatic’ era house style, and focusing on a wonderful photo of John Foxx by Chris Gabrin, which again dates from the era and very much adapts Foxx himself and his ‘grey suit’ persona dead-centre into the narrative of the aesthetic.

The music contained in the album is a selection of tracks drawn from disc three of 2018’s 3 CD box set of ‘Metamatic’ (Metamatic META63BX, released 25th May, 2018). It is not a complete equivalent of that disc however, several tracks are missing. So, if you are seeking a complete record of the ‘Metamatic’ era archive, you’ll still need to seek that out.

John Foxx 'Concrete and Organised Noise' LP front cover design — ^ John Foxx ‘Concrete and Organised Noise’ LP front cover design

So, much of the material presented here is instrumental, electronic pieces, but there are a few more ‘song’ based pieces that are found, principally earlier or alternative versions of some from either ‘Metamatic’ itself or the accompanying singles of the era. Continue reading “John Foxx compilations across the years Part 10”