Log #133 - Sheep Chillin' On A Train Across America

Who are KLF and what does it stand for? I think they are a 2 piece, and I know they are famous for three things:

i) burning £1,000,000

ii) being rude at a BRITs awards ceremony or similar

iii) their Chillout album 

Time to investigate.

Let's find some footage:

So the burning stunt did happen (and it was brave, as they reportedly didn't have that much money to spare!).

Their appearance to collect the Best British Group award at the BRITs in 1992 saw KLF literally going out with a bang - showering the audience with fake gunfire as they announced their retirement from the music business, and that was it barring some recent reformation rumours.

Then finally there is the music. The album is a bit of a mixture, literally. There's lots of samples, special effects, explosions, cicadas, night trains honking and clattering (the theme of the album is a mythical night train journey through the Southern US States), rainforest ambience, farmyard animals (mostly sheep), sheep on trains?, car horns, and spoken word (some in foreign languages). You get the picture. Probably super original at the time although much more common place nowadays of course. Overall the repeated sounds and themes help hold the album together in a consistent whole.

Most obvious musical sample comes from Fleetwood Mac's Albatross through 3AM Somewhere Out of Beaumont. There is some country western Elvis in Elvis On The Radio, Steel Guitar In My Soul. Also interesting is the slide guitar imbued throughout the album which recalls another classic ambient album, Brian Eno's Apollo. 

The samples and soundbites remind me of the Orb's classic Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld which came out a year after this one in April 1991. But the Orb's album is much more beaty.

Not that this album is as ambient as I was led to believe (Chillout is often held up as one of the early classics of the genre).

The brilliant cover is an obvious homage to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother which coincidentally was in the player a couple of weeks ago. I heard there was a Pink Floyd sample in the album but I haven't spotted it (unless it's the sonic submarine pulses from Echoes? - help me out here folks).

And what does KLF stand for?

Well, it was a bit of running joke, and you'd expect nothing less from a band that apparently had contempt for the music business. The letters have been said to stand for Kopyright Liberation Front, Kings of the Low(er) Frequency, Kool Low Frequency, Keep Looking Forward, and erm... Kevin Likes Fruit.

Jean Michel Jarre Oxygene  

Floating Points Elaenia

Popol Vuh In Den Garten Pharaos

Morton Feldman Rothko Chapel / Why Patterns?

KLF Chillout

Various Neu Decade

Oxygene was one of the classic Jarre albums everyone used to pass around at school (in the 70s if you were at school then, or maybe the 80s). This is the one with the skull on the front. There was another one equally as popular but I can't remember what it was called now. Hang on...

Was it Equinoxe?  Not sure actually. I think the album cover is wrong. But actually looking at his discography it must have been this one too - it was released in 1978, 2 years after Oxygene.

Two classic Jarre's from the 70s

Jarre was never as cool as the other electronic music people were listening to at school like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. It was considered a bit more commercial. But on reflection, hearing this stuff 40 years later, it holds up really well. In fact I was listening to a very modern dance tune which reminded me of Oxygene (and Giles Petersson's storming Elle), which is why I came to put it on.

[Actually Eddy check your facts, Elle is from DJ Gregory, sure it was on a Gilles Peterson compilation but is a DJ Gregory piece. Ed.]

Indeed the Ed. is right. What a track though. Reproduced below:

Really enjoying all the Popol Vuh tracks now, including the two bonus experimental pieces.

The latter half of the Neu Decade compilation is very guitar and rock based - some new "Krautrock" sounds there to enjoy.

Lots of contemplative space in the Feldman, and Elaenia is a classy beaty electronic jazz fusion work. It's been a good week.