You better not stop them 'cause they're coming through
January 3, 2021 10:19 AM Subscribe
For the first time since 1992, The KLF have reissued their music on streaming services and YouTube as an eight-track collection named Solid State Logik 1 including Doctorin' The Tardis, 3AM Eternal, and Justified & Ancient.
Bring the beat back! It’s great to not have to bust out the vinyl in order to listen. Or do i miss that a bit already? Anyway still as groundbreaking and epic as ever \m/ and now accessible to more people which has got to be good. Imagine hearing this for the first time now.
posted by tardigrade at 10:28 AM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by tardigrade at 10:28 AM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Dang, this is some moderately surprising good news!
posted by Going To Maine at 10:35 AM on January 3, 2021
posted by Going To Maine at 10:35 AM on January 3, 2021
I assume the rights have reverted.
Someone linked to the news on another site and also to The Manual, scanned in with occasional OCR artefacts. When it came out I didn't really want to hear what it said, but now it's like a record from a bygone age. I suppose it marked the beginning of the road to where we are now.
posted by Grangousier at 10:36 AM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Someone linked to the news on another site and also to The Manual, scanned in with occasional OCR artefacts. When it came out I didn't really want to hear what it said, but now it's like a record from a bygone age. I suppose it marked the beginning of the road to where we are now.
posted by Grangousier at 10:36 AM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not generally into the style of music the KLF played, but I can give a hearty endorsement to this book about the band by John Higgs, which situates them in a 90's cultural milieu which includes the likes of Alan Moore , Dr. Who, and Robert Anton Wilson, and is engagingly breezily written. The author also discusses the book in some detail in this podcast interview with Ezra Klein.
posted by whir at 10:47 AM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by whir at 10:47 AM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
Man, imagine if they made a million pounds doing this...like a million actual cash pounds....I wonder what they’d do with all that? In side news: I’m offering my backyard for any totally unrelated interactive art installations they want to do. (Runs to check if fire extinguishers are ready)
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:55 AM on January 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:55 AM on January 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
Also needs about 50 more tags to accurately reflect all their names. But I’d settle for FurthermoreKnownAsTheJAMS!
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:04 AM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:04 AM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
Love the KLF singles. Also when they played with Extreme Noise Terror and (fake) machine-gunned the audience at a Brit Music award ceremony they cemented a place in my crusty heart. The only thing I could imagine that would be better would be Silverfish dueting Jolene with Dolly Parton. Such a shame their mythical 'Black Album' (like the opposite of their White Album) got canned. Anyway - someone has a collection of KLF anecdotes on twitter which are fairly amusing.
One music paper had a feature where they allowed bands to run around HMV & take whatever albums they could grab in a five minute period then discuss why they chose particular each particular record.
The KLF were asked to do it & they grabbed as many blank cassettes as they could.
posted by phigmov at 11:06 AM on January 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
One music paper had a feature where they allowed bands to run around HMV & take whatever albums they could grab in a five minute period then discuss why they chose particular each particular record.
The KLF were asked to do it & they grabbed as many blank cassettes as they could.
posted by phigmov at 11:06 AM on January 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
Well it's about Time For Love
posted by alex_skazat at 11:27 AM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by alex_skazat at 11:27 AM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh WOW!! My teen years are hitting hard today! This is AMAZING!!
posted by phytage at 11:29 AM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by phytage at 11:29 AM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Doctorin' the Tardis [doctored]
various versions, mixed and mashed
shameless self-link
posted by philip-random at 11:53 AM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
various versions, mixed and mashed
shameless self-link
posted by philip-random at 11:53 AM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Great, I'm going to pirate this as soon as possible and then piss on a picture of them, cause that's what they'd want. Seriously!
Still haven't written a number-one hit according to their instructions, but I know St. Etienne among others has.
posted by not_on_display at 12:13 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Still haven't written a number-one hit according to their instructions, but I know St. Etienne among others has.
posted by not_on_display at 12:13 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Clearly this is so they can burn the 2$ check they get from a few 100 million plays as an artistic statement
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [23 favorites]
Severe double take here, until I realized that I am a thousand years old and maybe some of the yoots don’t realize that “an eight-track collection” is not the same as “a collection of eight singles”. I wouldn’t put it past the KLF to suddenly reissue old material as 8-tracks tho.
posted by mhoye at 12:25 PM on January 3, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 12:25 PM on January 3, 2021 [13 favorites]
So...maybe y'all can explain something to me.
I'm a huge fan of electronic music. But I've never really understood the love for The KLF.
Here in the States, they're known primarily as the one-hit wonder behind "3 am Eternal", which was in heavy rotation on MTV. It's a fun song, with a great beat – but at the end of the day, it's a rather silly pop-dance number.
I've listened to a good bit of their other stuff, and (except for Chill Out) it's all similarly goofy.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of self-aware clowning, of course. And I get that they were pranksters. But it seems so incongruous with their revered status.
Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me? A pop-crossover version of early 90s house music, sure – but I can't imagine a house DJ playing The KLF.
From what I've seen, acid house had much more mainstream visibility in the UK than it's ever had in the states. So I guess some of The KLF's clowning was meant to be subversive media jamming? I've heard about some of their stunts, but I guess it's hard to appreciate the cleverness if you weren't there to see how it played out in the UK media at the time.
I genuinely don't mean to disparage the band or their fans. They're not my thing – but they're held in high regard in the history of UK dance music, so I just want to understand what it's all about. What's the appeal? What about their music (and/or tomfoolery) and did people connect so strongly with back in the day?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:31 PM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm a huge fan of electronic music. But I've never really understood the love for The KLF.
Here in the States, they're known primarily as the one-hit wonder behind "3 am Eternal", which was in heavy rotation on MTV. It's a fun song, with a great beat – but at the end of the day, it's a rather silly pop-dance number.
I've listened to a good bit of their other stuff, and (except for Chill Out) it's all similarly goofy.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of self-aware clowning, of course. And I get that they were pranksters. But it seems so incongruous with their revered status.
Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me? A pop-crossover version of early 90s house music, sure – but I can't imagine a house DJ playing The KLF.
From what I've seen, acid house had much more mainstream visibility in the UK than it's ever had in the states. So I guess some of The KLF's clowning was meant to be subversive media jamming? I've heard about some of their stunts, but I guess it's hard to appreciate the cleverness if you weren't there to see how it played out in the UK media at the time.
I genuinely don't mean to disparage the band or their fans. They're not my thing – but they're held in high regard in the history of UK dance music, so I just want to understand what it's all about. What's the appeal? What about their music (and/or tomfoolery) and did people connect so strongly with back in the day?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:31 PM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
KLF: Embrace the Contradictions is a wonderful one-hour audio collage of klf music/interviews/phone calls/related bits.
posted by user92371 at 12:32 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by user92371 at 12:32 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
Man, I loved Justified and Ancient when I was a kid. I didn't understand Justified and Ancient but I loved it.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:52 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 12:52 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Bill Drummond is my favourite living British artist for a great many reasons, and I love his writing and the many varied projects he has occupied himself with since leaving the music industry just as much as his more well-known endeavours.
Sadly, I suspect that circumstances may be forcing his hand here, and fully support whatever is necessary to provide for a comfortable future for him & family.
posted by anagrama at 12:54 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Sadly, I suspect that circumstances may be forcing his hand here, and fully support whatever is necessary to provide for a comfortable future for him & family.
posted by anagrama at 12:54 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
What's the appeal? What about their music (and/or tomfoolery) and did people connect so strongly with back in the day?
This is a purely anecdotal piece of data, not trying to answer your bigger questions here, but I discovered KLF back in the early-mid 90s thanks to my then girlfriend who had a few of their albums.
The appeal in that household was that it was fun, dance-driven music but there was clearly something else going on there, a bit more sophistication or at least intent that wasn't present in a lot of the other house music. The 1990 release "Chill Out" in particular, (their "concept album") really held up for me and I didn't encounter it until 1994.
You could put one of their CDs (not Chill Out) into your fancy 5 CD shuffler where the songs would fit in nicely with other music, even that of different genres.
So I guess the short answer is, for me they were able to escape the orbit of the dance club and make it into the living room, car, etc.
posted by jeremias at 12:55 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
This is a purely anecdotal piece of data, not trying to answer your bigger questions here, but I discovered KLF back in the early-mid 90s thanks to my then girlfriend who had a few of their albums.
The appeal in that household was that it was fun, dance-driven music but there was clearly something else going on there, a bit more sophistication or at least intent that wasn't present in a lot of the other house music. The 1990 release "Chill Out" in particular, (their "concept album") really held up for me and I didn't encounter it until 1994.
You could put one of their CDs (not Chill Out) into your fancy 5 CD shuffler where the songs would fit in nicely with other music, even that of different genres.
So I guess the short answer is, for me they were able to escape the orbit of the dance club and make it into the living room, car, etc.
posted by jeremias at 12:55 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
What's the appeal? I'll have a stab.
I only came across the KLF as a grown-ass adult some thirty years after they were popular, so I can't speak for what their appeal was back in the 90s. But I fell immediately in love for various reasons. First up, their music just "slaps" to use the modern parlance. They had a knack for catchy riffs and beats, and it still stands up today in my opinion.
But what really set them apart for me was the anarchic humour, the subversiveness, the nods to discordianism and their own world building that came out of that. For me in the present day, surrounded by ubiquitous conspiracy theories, it was a breath of fresh air to hear them making pop dance tracks that contain some of the weirdest and funniest lyrics I've ever heard. Like it's a counterpoint to how seriously everyone in the modern world takes themselves, particularly musicians. And I say that as a die hard fan of other deadly serious anarchic music like that of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
posted by Acey at 1:19 PM on January 3, 2021 [9 favorites]
I only came across the KLF as a grown-ass adult some thirty years after they were popular, so I can't speak for what their appeal was back in the 90s. But I fell immediately in love for various reasons. First up, their music just "slaps" to use the modern parlance. They had a knack for catchy riffs and beats, and it still stands up today in my opinion.
But what really set them apart for me was the anarchic humour, the subversiveness, the nods to discordianism and their own world building that came out of that. For me in the present day, surrounded by ubiquitous conspiracy theories, it was a breath of fresh air to hear them making pop dance tracks that contain some of the weirdest and funniest lyrics I've ever heard. Like it's a counterpoint to how seriously everyone in the modern world takes themselves, particularly musicians. And I say that as a die hard fan of other deadly serious anarchic music like that of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
posted by Acey at 1:19 PM on January 3, 2021 [9 favorites]
I wasn’t “there” but I’ve always thought of them as representative of the era in which dance music crossed over into the mainstream (in the U.K.) but as maintaining an underground edge because of their culture jamming stunts, and their plunderphonic sampling. And ultimately being able to follow through with burning their proceeds and deleting their catalog for decades evinces a respectable commitment to something.
Also they intentionally kept one foot on the more underground side of dance culture with stripped-down self-remixes, and the chill out stuff (including Cauty’s work on the first Orb album).
posted by atoxyl at 1:29 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
Also they intentionally kept one foot on the more underground side of dance culture with stripped-down self-remixes, and the chill out stuff (including Cauty’s work on the first Orb album).
posted by atoxyl at 1:29 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
What's the appeal? What about their music (and/or tomfoolery) and did people connect so strongly with back in the day?
The thing is, in the UK at least, the music itself - as wonderfully daft as the OTT chart bangers are - was a relatively minor element in the overarching deconstructive guerrilla-art project that Drummond & Cauty revelled in for many years (I recommend Drummond's book 45 as an excellent primer into his mindset).
That said, they were also on the leading edge of multiple evolutions in popular electronic music too, from being sampling cowboys in the JAMMS, thru the stadium-house megahits and as ambient pioneers with Chillout, which Cauty developed further with The Orb.
That they had a wicked sense of humour and made no end of good copy for the music press certainly helped too.
posted by anagrama at 1:34 PM on January 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
The thing is, in the UK at least, the music itself - as wonderfully daft as the OTT chart bangers are - was a relatively minor element in the overarching deconstructive guerrilla-art project that Drummond & Cauty revelled in for many years (I recommend Drummond's book 45 as an excellent primer into his mindset).
That said, they were also on the leading edge of multiple evolutions in popular electronic music too, from being sampling cowboys in the JAMMS, thru the stadium-house megahits and as ambient pioneers with Chillout, which Cauty developed further with The Orb.
That they had a wicked sense of humour and made no end of good copy for the music press certainly helped too.
posted by anagrama at 1:34 PM on January 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
> Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me? A pop-crossover version of early 90s house music, sure – but I can't imagine a house DJ playing The KLF.
Have you heard the original Pure Trance versions of What Time is Love (1988) and 3am Eternal (1989)?
posted by user92371 at 1:40 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Have you heard the original Pure Trance versions of What Time is Love (1988) and 3am Eternal (1989)?
posted by user92371 at 1:40 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'd heard that mix of "What Time is Love" – in fact, I think it's the only version I've heard – but had forgotten about it. I hadn't heard the original "3 am Eternal" until just now. And, yeah – those are definitely less pop and more house.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:46 PM on January 3, 2021
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:46 PM on January 3, 2021
I would like a re-release of Chill Out, please. It’s one of my favorite albums, and I lost my physical copy 20 years ago in the Bronx.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 1:51 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 1:51 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
'The Manual' was also pretty enlightening - one of those weird txt-files that appeared on BBS's because you weren't going to get it in the original dead-tree format. A bit like Albinis record industry rant, this type of thing helped demystify aspects of the industry. Granted, a lot of it was only really applicable to a certain time/place but it was both an entertaining read and completely believable. In hindsight, whether it was 100% true or not is likely debatable - like many of the stories that surrounded Drummond & Cauty; however they did enough genuinely entertaining things that it made you err on the believable side of the fence.
posted by phigmov at 2:16 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by phigmov at 2:16 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
i distinctly remember someone playing "whitney joins the jamms" for me and i thought, you can do that?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYTFJvgxx5Q
posted by danjo at 2:34 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by danjo at 2:34 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Higgs’ book stresses it but it’s worth repeating: the early nineties were culturally weird in a way that it’s hard to describe. The Berlin Wall fell, the liberal West was ascendant, there was a consensus that all would be well and that all problems were solveable, outwardly there was a complacent cultural self-satisfaction. Except the reason the KLF hit such a nerve was that their farce-conspiracy schtick expressed what everyone at some level knew, that everything was not ok, things were-are profoundly wrong at a deep level. It was a Renaissance era for conspiracy thinking and parapolitics. The joke was funnier and more accessible when weird dangerous ideas were hidden secrets, not in power.
If nothing else the KLF have a heavy sense of irony so it’s appropriate that, uniquely, they played first time as farce, and second time as tragedy...
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:35 PM on January 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
If nothing else the KLF have a heavy sense of irony so it’s appropriate that, uniquely, they played first time as farce, and second time as tragedy...
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:35 PM on January 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
Like Tammy, I stand by the Jams. Thanks for posting.
posted by No Robots at 2:48 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 2:48 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
One of the many paradoxes, of the vast pyramid of paradoxes that the KLF built, is that in a better world they would not be relevant.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 3:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 3:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
KLF! I hadn't thought of them for years, until a couple of months ago, when 2020, man. It was time again for the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. They truly are the Timelords. I don't know what to say if you don't dig how strange and cool they were and are. It's like if you have that 90s cellphone from 3AM Eternal, you too can make that call that will take you to the secret doorway that will lead you into a joyous world beyond limits and conventions. All aboard!
posted by nanook at 3:19 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by nanook at 3:19 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yeah my actual love for the Jams came much later, way after the many many times I'd heard them and thought, "Eh, that's a catchy one," without even registering the songs as by the same people. I'd even come across their £1m story and anarchist leanings via various articles not focussed on them but including them among others. So that was like 1988-1990 when I was hearing the two under so many names.
It wasn't until 2010 or so that I ran into Chill Out (one of the best sound collage albums IMHO and one of the earlier examples) and THEN connected the dots and [pk-chewwww] my mind was blown. After a skimming re-listen, and reading their manual [direct link to The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way], it all fit together.
SCENESTERS! And good at mass media. Did you know Chumbawamba were anarchists too? I remember being young and thinking Crass was the sound of anarchy and how could anarchists ever even aspire to make the charts. Boy was I young.
posted by not_on_display at 3:23 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
It wasn't until 2010 or so that I ran into Chill Out (one of the best sound collage albums IMHO and one of the earlier examples) and THEN connected the dots and [pk-chewwww] my mind was blown. After a skimming re-listen, and reading their manual [direct link to The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way], it all fit together.
SCENESTERS! And good at mass media. Did you know Chumbawamba were anarchists too? I remember being young and thinking Crass was the sound of anarchy and how could anarchists ever even aspire to make the charts. Boy was I young.
posted by not_on_display at 3:23 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
A while back I swear I saw a fairly tongue-in-cheek video on YouTube from the band that showed how you could make your own copy of 1987 from the source recordings to bypass the delisting and destruction, but I’ve never been able to find it again. I don’t suppose anyone has a link bookmarked?
posted by Kyol at 3:56 PM on January 3, 2021
posted by Kyol at 3:56 PM on January 3, 2021
And for me it was sort of a magical time in the (very late) 80's and early 90's when sampling became technologically feasible enough and musically proficient enough that, sure, there were a fair number of popular bad examples (i.e. vanilla ice & etc), but between the KLF, Coldcut, Pop Will Eat Itself and the Orb, there was some really interesting music coming out that was fundamentally composed of other primary sources that tickled my musical fancy.
And then the legalities were clarified and the entire scene disappeared overnight. Some of the bands made the transition, but most of them were basically DJs before DJ licensing was really a thing and they faded out.
I think the KLF managed to keep a hold on popular consciousness because, as mentioned above, they had a whole _look_ and quasi-conspiracy behind them that really latched into people's memories. And then you'd keep kind of discovering links between the KLF and the Orb and other bands that kind of ended up like an ARG before we had a term for it.
posted by Kyol at 4:10 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
And then the legalities were clarified and the entire scene disappeared overnight. Some of the bands made the transition, but most of them were basically DJs before DJ licensing was really a thing and they faded out.
I think the KLF managed to keep a hold on popular consciousness because, as mentioned above, they had a whole _look_ and quasi-conspiracy behind them that really latched into people's memories. And then you'd keep kind of discovering links between the KLF and the Orb and other bands that kind of ended up like an ARG before we had a term for it.
posted by Kyol at 4:10 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
But I've never really understood the love for The KLF....
The only people I know (UScentric Burner culture) that really have any idea who the KLF are at this point are also people rooted in discordianism and the like and are as into the KLF for culture jamming as much as the music. They had an ethos way beyond drugs and dancing that many acts at the time didn't.
And like QAnon, all of the mythos, multiple mixes, and legends pushes a pleasure button in many people's minds as you start digging deeper and deeper.
They were also one of the early breakouts to the pop market, which served as a gateway drug for people, so there's some fondness for that.
Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me?
I can see a pretty direct line from the Madchester acid house scene (808 State, Baby Ford, etc.) and the early KLF.
posted by Candleman at 4:25 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
The only people I know (UScentric Burner culture) that really have any idea who the KLF are at this point are also people rooted in discordianism and the like and are as into the KLF for culture jamming as much as the music. They had an ethos way beyond drugs and dancing that many acts at the time didn't.
And like QAnon, all of the mythos, multiple mixes, and legends pushes a pleasure button in many people's minds as you start digging deeper and deeper.
They were also one of the early breakouts to the pop market, which served as a gateway drug for people, so there's some fondness for that.
Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me?
I can see a pretty direct line from the Madchester acid house scene (808 State, Baby Ford, etc.) and the early KLF.
posted by Candleman at 4:25 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I didn’t get to join the Metafilter Gala - but I’m getting a kick that so many of us are collectively jamming to KLF right this second
posted by inflatablekiwi at 5:16 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 5:16 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't know how connected they were to it, but there was definitely a fabric of connections between the KLF, fringier elements from previous decades (The Orb were at their peak at the same time; in other news, Ken Campbell was doing his RAW-inspired one-man shows, the Fortean Times was going strong. I wandered down to Megatripolis (an attempt to do a weekly rave with an earnest lecture to kick off the evening) a few times, on one occasion with someone who frequented Heaven on the other nights and he was horrified) - a mash-up of hippy stuff, conspiracy theories, Situationism, silliness and outright blaggery. That Macromedia Director, Cubase, early 3d modelling apps (all without the hindrance of functional copyright protection) and the WWW were percolating at the same time, also fits in there. Loads of visionaries and bullshit artists all over the place and it was impossible to tell them apart. Perhaps the visionaries had better shoes, I'm not sure.
Just like after Punk, when popular culture looks like going into a Cambrian Explosion of Stuff, it's like they squirt shiny pop music all over everything to make the weird stuff go away - in the early 80s it was New Romantics and Wham and in the early 90s it was boy bands and Britpop.
I sometimes wonder whether pop isn't a kind of digestive fluid, which makes challenging lumps embedded in popular culture more easily ingestible by capitalism.
But you do occasionally get these wonderful interstitial moments when nobody knows what the hell is going on and anything is not only possible but likely.
Anyway, here we are in the future, everyone has access to the media pipe and everyone is, as Momus said, famous for fifteen people.
(Oversentimentalised and chronologically flawed, but I hope fitting with the general tenor of the thread.)
posted by Grangousier at 5:17 PM on January 3, 2021 [16 favorites]
Just like after Punk, when popular culture looks like going into a Cambrian Explosion of Stuff, it's like they squirt shiny pop music all over everything to make the weird stuff go away - in the early 80s it was New Romantics and Wham and in the early 90s it was boy bands and Britpop.
I sometimes wonder whether pop isn't a kind of digestive fluid, which makes challenging lumps embedded in popular culture more easily ingestible by capitalism.
But you do occasionally get these wonderful interstitial moments when nobody knows what the hell is going on and anything is not only possible but likely.
Anyway, here we are in the future, everyone has access to the media pipe and everyone is, as Momus said, famous for fifteen people.
(Oversentimentalised and chronologically flawed, but I hope fitting with the general tenor of the thread.)
posted by Grangousier at 5:17 PM on January 3, 2021 [16 favorites]
God bless the KLF and all who sail in her.
(I have an incredible urge to make bad versions of the album covers in Deluxe Paint on an Amiga, because it's what you could do at the time.)
posted by scruss at 6:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
(I have an incredible urge to make bad versions of the album covers in Deluxe Paint on an Amiga, because it's what you could do at the time.)
posted by scruss at 6:14 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
The '90s were having a moment - they were teetering over into right-wing conspiracy theory as the cultural zeitgeist for reality removal. Then folks like KLF (and the Church of the SubGenius) adopted with abandon an obscure sci-fi/fantasy/alt-history farcical romp from the '70s, The Illuminatus Trilogy, as in the early '90s, 70's retro was in fashion. Now conspiracies are not about a Globalist New World Order, but about ancient societies populated by disgraced European nobility and tied into ancient cultures, clear back to Atlantis, and maybe there are lizard people pretending to be people in the halls of conservative power. These were a lot more popular.
In addition to the benevolent mind-candy, they also made realllly good electronic music that could slot in with mainstream trends while not being mainstream at all.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:55 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
In addition to the benevolent mind-candy, they also made realllly good electronic music that could slot in with mainstream trends while not being mainstream at all.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:55 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
One year on my birthday, I posted a Facebook status update that said, "I am ancient, but not justified."
I was surprised by how many people got it, but I suppose that a lot of my Facebook friends are also in the "ancient but not justified" cohort.
posted by orange swan at 8:31 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was surprised by how many people got it, but I suppose that a lot of my Facebook friends are also in the "ancient but not justified" cohort.
posted by orange swan at 8:31 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Having fun with conspiracy theories to teach us just how warped that reality could be. I've often been reminded of this bit from PD with the news lately:
GP: Is Eris true?
M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
posted by indexy at 9:06 PM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
GP: Is Eris true?
M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
posted by indexy at 9:06 PM on January 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
I hope this bodes well for a reissue of the Space LP, which is even more difficult to track down on wax than Chill Out.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 9:38 PM on January 3, 2021
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 9:38 PM on January 3, 2021
The KLF - What Time Is Love video reminded me how bonkers things in the TAZ could be. There's just a little of everything going on.
posted by mikelieman at 10:05 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by mikelieman at 10:05 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
If you can't grok the difference between the KLF -- with their musical innovations, cryptic lyrics, brilliant videos, occult mythology, situationist antics, and "better to burn out than fade away" ethos -- and the scores of other bands producing dance-pop in the early '90s who checked none of those boxes... I don't know what to tell you.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:06 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:06 PM on January 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Oooh!
> Someone linked to the news on another site and also to The Manual, scanned in with occasional OCR artefacts.
My instinctive response is to throw it into a GitHub repo and correct those typos. Hmm.
I listened to Chill Out countless times, hanging out with friends or falling asleep.
I loved Illuminati and other fun conspiracy theory, but they seem radioactive in an era of Qanon. I'd like to think that they'll kick off an immune response to conspiracy theories, but it feels more likely to be consumed without irony.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:23 AM on January 4, 2021
> Someone linked to the news on another site and also to The Manual, scanned in with occasional OCR artefacts.
My instinctive response is to throw it into a GitHub repo and correct those typos. Hmm.
I listened to Chill Out countless times, hanging out with friends or falling asleep.
I loved Illuminati and other fun conspiracy theory, but they seem radioactive in an era of Qanon. I'd like to think that they'll kick off an immune response to conspiracy theories, but it feels more likely to be consumed without irony.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:23 AM on January 4, 2021
Also, people talk about 'em as pioneers of acid house, but...none of their material sounds very acid-housey to me? A pop-crossover version of early 90s house music, sure – but I can't imagine a house DJ playing The KLF.
As someone who listened to acid house when it was still brand new - I find that a lot of people don't actually remember what acid house really sounded like and either only remember the smoother, more successful and later records that weren't really acid house any more by that point and more about New Beat or Madchester or whatever.
Even Coil's Snow EP or Psychick TV's Jack the Tab was refined and poppy compared to early acid house. Anything made after about 1990 like T99's Anasthasia only sort of resembles the earlier sounds of acid house.
Legit acid house is much more old school house with the hand claps, piano roll samples and vocal samples. It's poppy and super repetitive. And, well, it's really quite shrill and almost unlistenable by today's standards, like a high school kid with raging tinnitus abusing ADHD medication and a sampler.
See Bomb the Bass' Beat Dis for an easier example. Seriously, that track is a glorious hot mess and all over the place. It's so all over the place and unable to pick a lane that it doesn't know where the lane markers even are. Or HITHOUSE - Jack To The Sound of the Underground.
And those last two examples still aren't exactly what I'm talking about. I've actually had trouble for years finding online examples of the earlier sounds of acid house I'm talking about. There are records and one-hit-wonder tracks that - as cliche as this is - I used to have on vinyl that I can't even remember the names of and haven't heard or seen in like 30 years.
I remember what it sounded like, though, and it was like warped tape loops of piano roll samples played a bit too fast under water. It often felt curiously like taking a power drill to your own head and stuffing the holes full of dry powdered lemonade or Kool-Aid. It was like sucking on a particularly nasty vitamin C tablet - sharp, astringent, disorienting and even a little painful.
And I have no idea how this early sound became so popular with the football hooligan crowds that were a core part of what became the UK's Summer of Love in 1989. They must have had some seriously strong MDMA.
And it's this manic sound that the KLF was channeling and somehow smoothing out into pop hits. They took that hot mess of samples and the aggressive culture jamming vibes of Pop Will Eat Itself or Sigue Sigue Sputnik and rolled and dipped it in hooligan/lad culture and somehow managed to sell this subversive gold spray painted shit to the pop establishment while still also giving the masses some legit art and music that didn't suck.
There's so many levels to what they were doing, and they knew they were opening doors and poking holes in the established way of doing things.
As a DJ, would I drop a vintage KLF track today in the middle of one of my modern deep house sets? No. No, I probably wouldn't. Maybe some of the deeper or ambient house Cauty/Orb stuff, sure, but if I was going to do that I could just play some modern Orb or Thomas Fehlmann because they're still making good music, and most of the newer Thomas Fehlmann totally slaps.
posted by loquacious at 1:42 AM on January 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
As someone who listened to acid house when it was still brand new - I find that a lot of people don't actually remember what acid house really sounded like and either only remember the smoother, more successful and later records that weren't really acid house any more by that point and more about New Beat or Madchester or whatever.
Even Coil's Snow EP or Psychick TV's Jack the Tab was refined and poppy compared to early acid house. Anything made after about 1990 like T99's Anasthasia only sort of resembles the earlier sounds of acid house.
Legit acid house is much more old school house with the hand claps, piano roll samples and vocal samples. It's poppy and super repetitive. And, well, it's really quite shrill and almost unlistenable by today's standards, like a high school kid with raging tinnitus abusing ADHD medication and a sampler.
See Bomb the Bass' Beat Dis for an easier example. Seriously, that track is a glorious hot mess and all over the place. It's so all over the place and unable to pick a lane that it doesn't know where the lane markers even are. Or HITHOUSE - Jack To The Sound of the Underground.
And those last two examples still aren't exactly what I'm talking about. I've actually had trouble for years finding online examples of the earlier sounds of acid house I'm talking about. There are records and one-hit-wonder tracks that - as cliche as this is - I used to have on vinyl that I can't even remember the names of and haven't heard or seen in like 30 years.
I remember what it sounded like, though, and it was like warped tape loops of piano roll samples played a bit too fast under water. It often felt curiously like taking a power drill to your own head and stuffing the holes full of dry powdered lemonade or Kool-Aid. It was like sucking on a particularly nasty vitamin C tablet - sharp, astringent, disorienting and even a little painful.
And I have no idea how this early sound became so popular with the football hooligan crowds that were a core part of what became the UK's Summer of Love in 1989. They must have had some seriously strong MDMA.
And it's this manic sound that the KLF was channeling and somehow smoothing out into pop hits. They took that hot mess of samples and the aggressive culture jamming vibes of Pop Will Eat Itself or Sigue Sigue Sputnik and rolled and dipped it in hooligan/lad culture and somehow managed to sell this subversive gold spray painted shit to the pop establishment while still also giving the masses some legit art and music that didn't suck.
There's so many levels to what they were doing, and they knew they were opening doors and poking holes in the established way of doing things.
As a DJ, would I drop a vintage KLF track today in the middle of one of my modern deep house sets? No. No, I probably wouldn't. Maybe some of the deeper or ambient house Cauty/Orb stuff, sure, but if I was going to do that I could just play some modern Orb or Thomas Fehlmann because they're still making good music, and most of the newer Thomas Fehlmann totally slaps.
posted by loquacious at 1:42 AM on January 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
See Bomb the Bass' Beat Dis for an easier example. Seriously, that track is a glorious hot mess and all over the place. It's so all over the place and unable to pick a lane that it doesn't know where the lane markers even are. Or HITHOUSE - Jack To The Sound of the Underground.
That Jack To The Sound of the Underground track totally reminded me of (because there's a massive overlap in the samples they're both using :-) the Digital Concert 2 Amiga demo disk.
I was still at school when that all came out, so not really part of it, but I guess there was a fair overlap between the music and computer demo scenes then too. Loved both the stuff that got to the charts and those demo disks.
posted by amcewen at 2:40 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
That Jack To The Sound of the Underground track totally reminded me of (because there's a massive overlap in the samples they're both using :-) the Digital Concert 2 Amiga demo disk.
I was still at school when that all came out, so not really part of it, but I guess there was a fair overlap between the music and computer demo scenes then too. Loved both the stuff that got to the charts and those demo disks.
posted by amcewen at 2:40 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks for all of the input. This kind of confirms my suspicions: (1) their actual music isn't necessarily the most important part of what they were doing; and (2) their activities can only be understood as a response to the specific zeitgeist of British culture, media, and music at the time. (Which I wasn't around to experience – therefore, it's hard for me to understand what they were even responding to.)
(I have often struggled to understand the UK's relationship with electronic dance music – especially this early acid house era. I'm passingly familiar with many of the artists that have been named, and I know that they're all roughly part of the same era/movement – but I guess I don't really understand the larger phenomenon of the Summer of Love. Football hooligans, acid house acts on TV, electronic music on the pop charts – all of this is alien here in the States, where [until recently, at least] electronic music has always been an underground thing.)
Anyway! Carry on. I will be reading with bemused interest.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:09 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
(I have often struggled to understand the UK's relationship with electronic dance music – especially this early acid house era. I'm passingly familiar with many of the artists that have been named, and I know that they're all roughly part of the same era/movement – but I guess I don't really understand the larger phenomenon of the Summer of Love. Football hooligans, acid house acts on TV, electronic music on the pop charts – all of this is alien here in the States, where [until recently, at least] electronic music has always been an underground thing.)
Anyway! Carry on. I will be reading with bemused interest.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:09 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's interesting that they've only released it to streaming services (Spotify and YouTube), with no download services. If part of the project involves the option of making it disappear completely again, with no MP3s rattling around on anyone's hard drive, this would make sense. And there is precedent.
posted by acb at 5:50 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:50 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
> I assume the rights have reverted.
I assume the current eight songs are the most popular tracks the KLF could get their samples cleared on, and that their albums and remix disks (like many other sample-rich records of the 80s) might never be able to afford legitimate reissues.
The "Chill Out" and "White Room" albums were ubiquitous in CD discount bins through most of the 90s and 00s; I don't know if those are getting swooped up now or if avid music fans currently hate compact disks so much they'd rather shun them than have the music in any form.
> I loved Illuminati and other fun conspiracy theory, but they seem radioactive in an era of Qanon. I'd like to think that they'll kick off an immune response to conspiracy theories, but it feels more likely to be consumed without irony.
Illuminatus! was immensely entertaining when I was in my twenties. My takeaway was that when everything is a conspiracy, nothing is a conspiracy; carry on as usual. Then again I never did hallucinogens.
The late-80s through mid-90s era of tech-rinsed psychedelia doesn't hold up well for a variety of reasons. "Hakim Bey"'s invention of the Temporary Autonomous Zone and his copious writings about pederasty were not coincidental; these days he'd have been called out and cancelled before he could say "ontological anarchism". In any event it was readily rapidly evident that nobody could indulge in a TAZ of their own without sufficient numbers of people providing robust organization and structure, both to regulate its own environment and to ensure its insulation from the civilized world, so having one or two trust fund or nouveaux-riche techbro sponsors was usually necessary as well. Essential reading (at least in the US) included Re:Search, PIKHAL, Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, Factsheet 5, at least one book by Robert Anton Wilson (in addition to Illuminatus!) the Loompanics catalog (Lipstick Traces, Semiotext(e), or maybe one of Zone's books by or influenced by French postmodernists, if one was of a philosophical bent)...; rarely useful for actionable information but many of them essential resources for edgelordy voyeurism of a sort that only flies these days in Reddit or 4chan. This fascination with the world as something to watch while navel-gazing, in lieu of active engagement with the dominant political and social problems of the late 80s makes the scene of the time seem more ephemeral and less consequential than the psychedelic 60s and its seemingly inextricable engagement with the politics of that time -- although that engagement may have had at least as much to do with the need to defend or isolate itself from social opprobrium and drugs prosecution as with any sense of making the world better for others.
Oh well. The music was good.
posted by ardgedee at 6:08 AM on January 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
I assume the current eight songs are the most popular tracks the KLF could get their samples cleared on, and that their albums and remix disks (like many other sample-rich records of the 80s) might never be able to afford legitimate reissues.
The "Chill Out" and "White Room" albums were ubiquitous in CD discount bins through most of the 90s and 00s; I don't know if those are getting swooped up now or if avid music fans currently hate compact disks so much they'd rather shun them than have the music in any form.
> I loved Illuminati and other fun conspiracy theory, but they seem radioactive in an era of Qanon. I'd like to think that they'll kick off an immune response to conspiracy theories, but it feels more likely to be consumed without irony.
Illuminatus! was immensely entertaining when I was in my twenties. My takeaway was that when everything is a conspiracy, nothing is a conspiracy; carry on as usual. Then again I never did hallucinogens.
The late-80s through mid-90s era of tech-rinsed psychedelia doesn't hold up well for a variety of reasons. "Hakim Bey"'s invention of the Temporary Autonomous Zone and his copious writings about pederasty were not coincidental; these days he'd have been called out and cancelled before he could say "ontological anarchism". In any event it was readily rapidly evident that nobody could indulge in a TAZ of their own without sufficient numbers of people providing robust organization and structure, both to regulate its own environment and to ensure its insulation from the civilized world, so having one or two trust fund or nouveaux-riche techbro sponsors was usually necessary as well. Essential reading (at least in the US) included Re:Search, PIKHAL, Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, Factsheet 5, at least one book by Robert Anton Wilson (in addition to Illuminatus!) the Loompanics catalog (Lipstick Traces, Semiotext(e), or maybe one of Zone's books by or influenced by French postmodernists, if one was of a philosophical bent)...; rarely useful for actionable information but many of them essential resources for edgelordy voyeurism of a sort that only flies these days in Reddit or 4chan. This fascination with the world as something to watch while navel-gazing, in lieu of active engagement with the dominant political and social problems of the late 80s makes the scene of the time seem more ephemeral and less consequential than the psychedelic 60s and its seemingly inextricable engagement with the politics of that time -- although that engagement may have had at least as much to do with the need to defend or isolate itself from social opprobrium and drugs prosecution as with any sense of making the world better for others.
Oh well. The music was good.
posted by ardgedee at 6:08 AM on January 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
Illuminatus! originated from as a critique of McCarthy-era far-right conspiracy theories about the Bavarian Illuminati being behind both Godless Communism and Capitalism, which was something propagated by the likes of the John Birch Society. A lot of these conspiracy theorists were fellow travellers with the likes of the KKK. So toxic conspiracy theories are something that has been around for a while.
As for Illuminatus!, to many it has functioned as an inoculation against the conspiracy narrative.
posted by acb at 6:20 AM on January 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
As for Illuminatus!, to many it has functioned as an inoculation against the conspiracy narrative.
posted by acb at 6:20 AM on January 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Essential reading (at least in the US) included Re:Search, PIKHAL, Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, Factsheet 5, at least one book by Robert Anton Wilson (in addition to Illuminatus!) the Loompanics catalog (Lipstick Traces, Semiotext(e), or maybe one of Zone's books by or influenced by French postmodernists, if one was of a philosophical bent)...; rarely useful for actionable information but many of them essential resources for edgelordy voyeurism of a sort that only flies these days in Reddit or 4chan.
One could probably draw a path between that milieu and the far right, going through the industrial/body-mod parts (i.e., Re/Search), self-identified misanthropes such as Boyd Rice, Jim Goad and Peter Sotos, and more commercially savvy Nazi-adjacents like Gavin McInnes.
posted by acb at 6:23 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
One could probably draw a path between that milieu and the far right, going through the industrial/body-mod parts (i.e., Re/Search), self-identified misanthropes such as Boyd Rice, Jim Goad and Peter Sotos, and more commercially savvy Nazi-adjacents like Gavin McInnes.
posted by acb at 6:23 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
One of the guys in the KLF is in the Orb? How am I just finding out about this now? I always enjoyed the erisian element of the KLF mythos and presentation, but never really tried to listen to any of their stuff. With this, I definitely will.
posted by Hactar at 8:42 AM on January 4, 2021
posted by Hactar at 8:42 AM on January 4, 2021
Doctorin' The TARDIS was one of the first MP3s that I uh...acquired.
I used to play it on repeat in WinAMP just to look at how responsive and fiery the spectrum analyzer was. And I always used it test the visualizer plugins.
Despite the track's relative age by the mid-1990s, it was still "new" enough compared with the very dated Doctor Who episodes I was watching that I could convince myself that the series was still culturally relevant (the 1990s were a bleak time to be a Doctor Who fan...)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I used to play it on repeat in WinAMP just to look at how responsive and fiery the spectrum analyzer was. And I always used it test the visualizer plugins.
Despite the track's relative age by the mid-1990s, it was still "new" enough compared with the very dated Doctor Who episodes I was watching that I could convince myself that the series was still culturally relevant (the 1990s were a bleak time to be a Doctor Who fan...)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
One of the guys in the KLF is in the Orb?
Just at the very very beginning. The Orb has basically always been Alex Patterson plus collaborators, but Cauty was the founding collaborator.
posted by atoxyl at 9:06 AM on January 4, 2021
Just at the very very beginning. The Orb has basically always been Alex Patterson plus collaborators, but Cauty was the founding collaborator.
posted by atoxyl at 9:06 AM on January 4, 2021
I loved Illuminati and other fun conspiracy theory, but they seem radioactive in an era of Qanon. I'd like to think that they'll kick off an immune response to conspiracy theories, but it feels more likely to be consumed without irony.
I'd say they were hundred percent responsible for kicking off my immune responses way back when -- mid 1980s through the early 90s -- when I was very much consumed by them, and never doubted the irony. They nourished an ultimately pragmatic skepticism that I've never been able to shake. I suppose it's as simple as Tammy Wynette singing lead on Justified and Ancient and the end result knocking it out of the park sales wise. The best conspiracy theories* are fun and wildly, improbably hopeful.
* and to be technical, the vast majority of them are not theories, they're hypotheses, unproven, unfalsified, just spitballing noise tossed recklessly into all the pre-existing noise. Justified + Ancient succeeds as Theory precisely because it did HIT.
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'd say they were hundred percent responsible for kicking off my immune responses way back when -- mid 1980s through the early 90s -- when I was very much consumed by them, and never doubted the irony. They nourished an ultimately pragmatic skepticism that I've never been able to shake. I suppose it's as simple as Tammy Wynette singing lead on Justified and Ancient and the end result knocking it out of the park sales wise. The best conspiracy theories* are fun and wildly, improbably hopeful.
* and to be technical, the vast majority of them are not theories, they're hypotheses, unproven, unfalsified, just spitballing noise tossed recklessly into all the pre-existing noise. Justified + Ancient succeeds as Theory precisely because it did HIT.
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
My Acid house memories: Humanoid and also Also the spice must flow.
I'll stop now :)
posted by aesop at 10:27 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'll stop now :)
posted by aesop at 10:27 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
“This content is not available in Mu-Mu Land.” Just great.
posted by No-sword at 2:56 PM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by No-sword at 2:56 PM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'd just like to say that I discovered the KLF due to being a young American nerd who was into Doctor Who. As a teenager they seemed way cooler than everyone else on MTV, and it's totally their fault that I read the Illuminatus Trilogy and a whole bunch of other Robert Anton Wilson stuff.
Decades later I was SO grateful these folks deprogrammed me before I turned into the kind of person who, like, thinks the (former) president was a Kenyan Muslim or whatever.
Also Cauty and Drummond both continue to make excellent (primarily) visual and performance art.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 7:43 PM on January 4, 2021
Decades later I was SO grateful these folks deprogrammed me before I turned into the kind of person who, like, thinks the (former) president was a Kenyan Muslim or whatever.
Also Cauty and Drummond both continue to make excellent (primarily) visual and performance art.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 7:43 PM on January 4, 2021
I'd say The Church of the Subgenius, KLF, Robert Anton Wilson, Negativland, and the Brunvand urban legend books were at an interesting inflection point, where some people had recognized memes /conspiracy theories and were attempting to inoculate people against them, or at least render them harmless, or use them as a creative exercise.
Now the same observations have been weaponized and turned into brainwashing tools for fascism and Facebook (but I repeat myself).
posted by benzenedream at 1:45 AM on January 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Now the same observations have been weaponized and turned into brainwashing tools for fascism and Facebook (but I repeat myself).
posted by benzenedream at 1:45 AM on January 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
This seems like a pretty good documentary around those times.
posted by Slothrup at 7:14 PM on January 5, 2021
posted by Slothrup at 7:14 PM on January 5, 2021
The DJ collective I ran with from 1996-2002 did a vinyl pressing of Chill Out that included unlicensed Cheech and Chong samples. We were so proud that we'd done to Drummond and Cauty's music exactly what they did with those Elvis samples they refused to pay for on Chill Out -- which then forced them to create "superhits" like all the abovementioned one-hit wonders just to pay off the lawsuits from Elvis' estate.
That record is still one of my most treasured rave artifacts of a bygone era. Truly.
For Loq and anyone else looking for the original "acid house" sound, I give you Maurice - This is Acid (1988) Acid Trax - Phuture (1987).
If you enjoy acid house and want, say, 3+ hour sets of it that includes both the late 80s/early 90s classics as well as newer tracks, then I strongly recommend looking up Carlos Souffront. It Is Known that he has the largest acid house music collection, and his No Way Back afterparty sets in Detroit are legendary. I'm talking 8-12 hours of straight rubber-band-flavored fire. In fact, one of the LAST warehouse parties I went to before the pandemic began was in January 2020 to see Carlos play a 4-hour set.
Ah, memories of my youth! Now back to the grind (puts on Stadium House trilogy and pounds coffee concentrate before editing today's 23* articles).
*fnord
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2021
That record is still one of my most treasured rave artifacts of a bygone era. Truly.
For Loq and anyone else looking for the original "acid house" sound, I give you Maurice - This is Acid (1988) Acid Trax - Phuture (1987).
If you enjoy acid house and want, say, 3+ hour sets of it that includes both the late 80s/early 90s classics as well as newer tracks, then I strongly recommend looking up Carlos Souffront. It Is Known that he has the largest acid house music collection, and his No Way Back afterparty sets in Detroit are legendary. I'm talking 8-12 hours of straight rubber-band-flavored fire. In fact, one of the LAST warehouse parties I went to before the pandemic began was in January 2020 to see Carlos play a 4-hour set.
Ah, memories of my youth! Now back to the grind (puts on Stadium House trilogy and pounds coffee concentrate before editing today's 23* articles).
*fnord
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2021
I wasn't able to gather my thoughts sufficiently on the subject of quite why The KLF are important before others covered all the bases... but I can pass on this link to a new film about their return!! Some blurb from the NME here.
Bring the beat back.
posted by deeker at 11:14 AM on January 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Bring the beat back.
posted by deeker at 11:14 AM on January 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Nyshka Chandran has a PR blurb about the KLF at Resident Advisor: “Watch a new film about The KLF's quest to build a giant pyramid from human cremains”
A BBC 4 documentary about the project
posted by Going To Maine at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Welcome To The Dark Ages documents the duo's goal of erecting a 23-feet-high pyramid using bricks made with the cremated remains of willing individuals, according to the project website. Dubbed the People's Pyramid, the monument is expected to contain over 34,000 bricks and will be constructed in Toxteth, an area of Liverpool.The trailer
A BBC 4 documentary about the project
posted by Going To Maine at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I cleaned up the typos and OCR errors from The Manual, and posted it to Projects.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:36 AM on February 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 11:36 AM on February 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
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