John Came Announces Release Of Long Lost Album 'Rhythmicon'

Mute have announced the release of John Came’s Rhythmicon album, due for release on September 8th, 2023. The album, a concept album using computer software and synthesizers, was shrouded in mystery on its original release in July of 1995. Who was John Came? Theories have included Alan Wilder, Vince Clarke or Daniel Miller. What exactly was the radiophonic wizardry concealed in the Rhythmicon?

At a time before the internet would purport to answer any question imaginable and in a world before fake news would become so commonplace, listeners could only guess.

John Came’s detailed biography pointed to an artist born in London who emigrated to Australia in search of a better life, eventually returning to the UK and then seeking inspiration in the islands of Northern Scotland before cycling from Skye to London.

And what of the mysterious rhythmicon? Came was introduced to the instrument by musician Nick Cope. The Rhythmicon was a machine co-designed by the American composer Henry Dixon Cowell (1897-1965) and Leon Theremin (inventor of the Theremin).

The instrument aimed to exhibit one of Cowell's musical theories in which intervallic and rhythmic relationships could be reduced to common mathematical ratios, in effect, a "harmonic" approach to rhythmic organization. Having the Rhythmicon as a 'given', Nick decided to invert the logic and derive harmonic and melodic information from rhythmic information and vice versa.

Using sound and theory, John Came introduced their ideas to the world via a series of instructive films showing Came playing his compositions (arhythmically) into a simulacrum of the Rhythmicon, thereby generating the rhythmic data of the pieces. From there, the rhythmic information of the pieces are turned into notes and then the two separate strands of transformed data are overlaid and entered into a music-notating and playing computer. 

The wild theory and deadpan delivery gave rise to a suspicion that John Came was a pseudonym and his rhythmicon was the result of the fertile imagination of an artist knowledgeable in the fields of electronic experimentation. Happily we can now answer ‘yes’ and ‘sorry, we still don’t know’.

John Came was indeed a pseudonym, the masterminds behind the concept were Simon Leonard and David Baker (aka Komputer / Fortran 5 / I Start Counting), but the exact details of the instrumentation and how this unusual album came about is still the subject of some conjecture.

Listen for yourself to a long-lost album of classic electronic experimentation. Its composer’s deep immersion in the worlds of electronic pop are evident, as is their long history with Mute. The artists, who started working together in 1982, released their first music on Mute in 1984 (I Start Counting’s ‘Letter to a Friend’, produced by Daniel Miller), before segueing into the more dance and techno-focused Fortran 5 (notable tracks include the Midnight Cowboy-sampling ‘Time To Dream’ and the club hit of ‘Heart on the Line’).

The John Came album arrived at a time when Leonard and Baker were transitioning from Fortran 5 to Komputer, who would go on to record their wonderful paean to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space (‘Valentina’, 1997). David Baker is currently working on his solo project, lonelyklown.

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