4 Albums by Hox and The Hox Vox Project, 1985 to 2009

Genre: Dada-Progressive Rock/Avant Garde Rock/Art Rock/Neo-Dadaist

Influenced by: Dadaist Movement, RIO Movement, Avant Garde Rock

Compared to: Actually no comparison, Hox is Hox and his style is his own!

Before beginning my actual review I feel it is a necessity to give you some background on the type of music that Hox is creating here.

The Dada movement began around the time of World War One, approximately 1915 and ran until about 1930 or so. A group of visual artists, poets and musicians, mainly in Europe, banded together to oppose the war specifically and society in general. They felt that if the world could participate in just a horrendous war, it was not worthy of true fine art and they set about creating their own versions of “faux art”. In the visual arts they produced absurd, surrealistic works, introducing elements that were totally out place with the main image. The Dadaists totally disregarded the norms of the day regarding art, literature and music theory. The goal of the Dadaists at that time was to poke fun at and destroy true art and replace it with their faux art.

In poetry, they would interject whistles, duck calls and multiple voices into their readings. Music wasn’t much better. Dissonance played a big role in this early “protest music”. Most Dada music becomes almost unbearable after more than a minute or two.

Dadaist concepts, in one form or another, have resurfaced over the years as a form of protesting injustices in the world of fine art. Some modern day examples would include the Beatnik era of the 1950s and the R.I.O. (Rock In Opposition) movement of the seventies which was in protest of the major record producers failure to recognize those artists who specialized in avant garde, improvisational and experimental rock music. The R.I.O. movement was lead by Henry Cow and included such artists as guitarist Fred Frith, percussionist Chris Cutler, John Zorn and Frank Zappa. The original intent was to form an organization to promote their style of music.

Once R.I.O. disbanded as an organization, it moved into the public domain as a musical genre. Groups associated with R.I.O. as a genre include 5uu’s, Guapo, Present and Thinking Plague. Today, RIO has become synonymous with avnt garde rock(avant-rock) and. experimental rock. As you will see shortly, some RIO music wasn’t very pleasant to listen to, either!

It is from this background that Hox and The Hox Vox Project has arisen. Hox says he is seeking a broader musical language, to better convey vast and ever changing moods in music. To do this, Hox must protest and totally disregard the boundaries and norms set by today’s accepted music theory.

He finds no problem with odd time signatures, such as 5/4 time, ambient noises, changing rhythms and/or genre in mid-song, irony and making fun of established norms and many other techniques.

The major difference between Hox’s music and past attempts to do this is that Hox has skillfully blended the techniques of Dadaist, RIO and Avant/Rock into enjoyable, easy to listen to, music! His music challenges and encourages us to “think out of the box” of the establishment. As a final affront to the established music world of today, Hox gives his music away absolutely FREE. Just visit his website, agree to the Creative Commons Deed and the music is yours! In short, if you have an eclectic taste for music, enjoy the unusual, want a conversation starter, or just want some FREE music, visit Hox’s website and download his four albums, you’ll be pleasantly surprised! I give Hox 9 out of 10 and a “thumbs up” for his remarkable music!

First, let me say I found it very difficult to choose tracks for this post as they are all great and convey different aspects of Hox’s music. Just as I finished my list I re-visited Hox’s website and found two more single tracks which I also included. The first is his treatment of Mama from The Spice Girls album by the same name and the second is Complete Control from the first album released by the group Clash. I also included, for comparison, an original Dadaist recording from 1914 and an improvisation from the RIO period. That way you can see exactly how great Hox’s music is! After the audio tracks is a short video Hox produced about a Hippie on Peyote set to his Belief:Greed from his Outskirts Album. I included this one because I grew up in the Hippie era!

Bill Dwyer, http://gcmusic.tmblr.net/?p=467 - Gulf Coast Music Review