2K - Fuck The Millennium

Fuck The Millennium is a one-off comeback single to celebrate the crapness of comebacks, released under the short-lived 2K alias. Bill Drummond’s 45 features a lengthy first-hand retelling of the how’s and why’s. The A side is basically an absolutely epic version of "What Time Is Love" with Bill Drummond chanting "Fuck the millennium, we want it now" and a totally over the top middle section with a Welsh choir singing some hymn while someone gives a sermon/rant. The track itself is built around The KLF’s What Time Is Love? and the cover version by Jeremy Deller’s Acid Brass as performed by the Williams Fairey Band who also reprised their performance for the recording of the single. The B side features the Acid Brass version of "What Time Is Love" which is brilliant. I'm actually mildly surprised KLF didn't come up with the Acid Brass idea before Jeremy Deller. "What Time is Love" definitely lent itself to Acid Brass more than some of the other tunes they did on that album (though "Voodoo Ray" was the best I think).

The KLF - Solid State Logik 2

Since we are talking about The KLF, the necessary supplement to their anthems is a collection of remixes and b-sides that will definitely help us stand by The Jamms. Solid State Logik 2 compiles the extended singles and B-sides released on KLF Communications between 1989 and 1992 (and beyond as suggested by the compilation’s subtitle). Following January's Solid State Logik 1 compilation, and last month's Come Down Dawn album, which is a reworked, "pre-mix" version of their 1990 album Chill Out. The KLF's site revealed the reason why they're uploading these albums on streaming platforms, "This appropriation was done in order to tell a story in five chapters using the medium of streaming. The name of the story is SAMPLECITY THRU TRANCENTRAL."
The five chapters include Kick Out The JAMs, Pure Trance Series, Come Down Dawn, Moody Boys Selection, Solid State Logik (Parts 1 & 2). The duo added on their site of the chapters, "There have been rumours of a lost chapter. The five chapters of SAMPLECITY THRU TRANCENTRAL are to be streamed in no particular order between the 1st of January 2021 and some destination in an unknowable future."

The KLF & The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - Come Down Dawn

The KLF have shared ‘Come Down Dawn’, a new album which sees the influential electronic duo putting a new spin on their 1990 album ‘Chill Out’. Released to streaming services (February 4, 2021), the record sees the band offering a reworked version of the seminal album – with a variety of previously unlicensed samples being removed from the release. Clocking in at 38 minutes, the 12 tracks take their name from a series of concurrent road trips across America – beginning with ‘Brooklyn to Atlantic City’ and finishing with ‘San Rafael to Mexico City’. The samples and sampling technique the KLF employed are a large part of Chill Out’s mythos. Notably absent from Come Down Dawn are the prominent Elvis Presley samples. Below is the full statement from the website
    Come Down Dawn was released on the 4th of February 2021.
    Come Down Dawn is a Drive by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
    A Drive is a journey in the head.
    The Drive took them from the Reverend Doctor Wade’s tabernacle in Brooklyn, New York to the Mesoamerican Pyramids near Mexico City.
    The Drive lasted just over a period of 43 hours.
    The Drive ended as dawn began to break on Sunday the 4th of February 1990.
    Come Down Dawn by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu is also a pre-mix of Chill Out released by The KLF on the 5th of February 1990.
    Come Down Dawn was released the day before Chill Out, but 31 years later.
    All tracks were recorded live at Trancentral in late 1989 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, featured guests include Evil Graham Lee on the pedal steel guitar, the Unknown Tuvan Shepherd on throat singing and the Reverend Doctor Wade on spiritual guidance.

The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - It's Grim Up North

This was right in the peak era of acid house madness in the UK, a time of great tabloid hysteria about this untameable new social phenomenon. A lot of new forms of dance music were emerging, and a lot of them probably sounded like alien mind control propaganda to the conservatives of the time. This 10 minute beast of a track draws on everything mechanical, terrifying, transhuman about that era, and turns it freakier. The fact of the matter is, techno was always a reaction to the direction the world was going at the time. If there was any conceivable way to make something like this in any of the prior industrial revolutions, I'm sure somebody would have, but only in the late 20th century did human technology reach the point where this was possible. So here's a big long gauntlet of a tune, drawing on the stereotype that the north of the UK is brutally inhospitable to live in, throwing in a weirdly chaotic riff and all kinds of twisted sounds...

The KLF / The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - Down Town 12”

Perhaps the pinnacle of Drummond and Cauty's early messy sampledelic satires, this one actually has a beat that doesn't fall apart, and the titular plagiarism is even tasteful (no pitch-shifted Beatles here). What really pushes this into the stratosphere is the mixture of joy, sadness, commercialism, cynicism, optimism, and beauty. The ecstatic choir and Drummond's anger and Petula's awe and then the pounding house rhythms and the violent scratches and the distant sirens... In the meantime, "Down Town" was The JAMs' and KLF Communications' final release of 1987, a 7" and 12" single release on 30 November. The song is gospel music driven by house music rhythms but thankfully it did not enter the UK Singles Chart, yet it did make inroads into the UK independent chart. "Down Town" was the second of The JAMs' three 1987 singles to become NME "single of the week". The British music paper called it "One massive hell-hating holler of a song", and concluded: "The JAMs may not be the hippest, sanest or sweetest band to stalk the Earth this year but they're certainly the most imaginative ... They've fired a musical trail so shocking they couldn't have kept you more on your toes if they'd stuffed a hand grenade up your ass and sent you out to tap dance in a pair of stilettos".

The KLF - Justified & Ancient

Welcome along to Sunday midday’s KLF post. I originally posted this lil gem of a single a while back, but I thought I’d revive it, dust it off and go again. This is the KLF (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu) at their peak (imho) and they could make some good tunes though, of which "Justified and Ancient" is maybe the best. Having existed in various forms for most of the duo's time together (and being something of a totemic track, with The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu one of their various pseudonyms), it's the 1991 single version you'll want to listen to; it's upbeat, with touches of gospel and vaguely world musical sounds, a good beat, a Hendrix lick on the chorus, and Tammy Wynette's vocals (and the accompanying "Stand By Your Man" nod) making it a great pop song. The average lifespan of a lot of pop music being what it is, it has also aged well; only Ricardo da Force really dates this thing (although even his rap works, it's just his 'hype man' stuff on the choruses which makes the song feel its 30 plus years). On reflection though, it has to be one of the maddest tracks ever released. Who exactly would have thought that Country Music legend Tammy Wynette could be tempted to front an insane dance act and sing lyrics about driving an ice cream van? Did she do it for money or the kudos of fronting the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu? You decide. Either way, it's a thumping great slab of mad techno frivolity and I still love it. 'Tammy, stand by the JAMM’s).' Oh behave.