Adventures in Modern Recording

''Adventures in Modern Recording'' is the second and final studio album by English new wave group the Buggles, released on 11 November 1981 by Carrere Records. Although the Buggles began as a duo of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, the album ended up as mostly Horn's solo effort, as Downes left to join the English rock band Asia on the day recording was originally scheduled to begin. It contains nine tracks, including a version of a track from the Buggles' collaborative album with Yes, ''Drama'' (1980); it was originally named "Into the Lens", but the Buggles rendition is titled "I Am a Camera". A stylistically and sonically varied progressive electronic album, ''Adventures in Modern Recording'' depicts Horn perfecting his skill as producer and was described by journalists as a document for how he would produce his later works. It was one of the earliest albums to use the Fairlight CMI, one of the first digital sampling synthesizers.

Upon its release, ''Adventures in Modern Recording'' faced mixed reviews from music critics and performed poorly commercially in the United Kingdom, failing to make it on the UK Albums Chart. The album did well in other territories, such as in North America and mainland Europe, reaching number 161 on the US ''Billboard'' 200. Additionally, retrospective reviews praised how comparable in quality its sound was to music released in later years.

Five singles were released from ''Adventures in Modern Recording'': "I Am a Camera", the title track, "On TV", "Lenny", and "Beatnik". Except for "Beatnik", the singles were minor hits in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, "Lenny" being a top-20 hit in the latter country. Both "We Can Fly from Here" and "Riding a Tide" (appearing as demos on the 2010 reissue) were re-recorded by Yes (with Horn as producer and Downes on keyboards) for their twentieth studio album ''Fly from Here'' (2011).

Background

On the day studio sessions for ''Adventures in Modern Recording'' were to begin, the Buggles' keyboardist Geoff Downes left to form the English rock band Asia. Although Island Records' publisher renegotiated with Downes, his departure gave the publisher a false impression that Buggles singer and bassist Trevor Horn's career ended, resulting in Island dropping the duo; this in turn led to Horn's other industry acquaintances having a similar viewpoint. Horn recalled feeling "astounded" and "fucking angry ..I hadn't even got started yet..." Shortly afterwards, Horn's wife Jill Sinclair made a deal with French label Carrere Records to fund, promote and release the album.

While ''Adventures in Modern Recording'' was mostly a Horn solo project, Downes was still involved in the writing and production of "Vermillion Sands", "I Am a Camera" and "Lenny" (where he also handled the drum programming) and played keyboards on "Beatnik". Other collaboraters included Julian Mendelsohn and Gary Langan as engineers; Anne Dudley, who would later form The Art of Noise with Langan and Horn, as keyboardist on "Beatnik"; Horn's long-time collaborator Luis Jardim as percussion on "Beatnik"; and Yes bassist Chris Squire as providing "sound effects" for the title track. One of the tracks, "I Am a Camera," started as a Buggles demo that turned into a "slightly more overblown" track for their Yes collaboration album ''Drama'' (1980), named "Into the Lens"; although Horn appreciated the Yes version's "unadulterated" melody and complex arrangement, he liked the Buggles' recording more.

Concept and sound

A more left-field record than the Buggles' previous album ''The Age of Plastic'' (1980) as Horn planned it to be, ''Adventures in Modern Recording'' is a progressive electronic album containing both dance cuts and big-sounding tracks. It is stylistically and sonically diverse, as heard in "Vermillion Sands" alone; compared by Chris Roberts of BBC Music to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", the song consists of "electro-pop