Album of the Week #9: The KLF - Chill Out
This is Album of the Week #9 ~ This week's album is The KLF - Chill Out Year of Release: 1990 Genre(s): Ambient, Sound Collage Country: United Kingdom Length: 44 minutes Listen! (YouTube) This...
This is Album of the Week #9 ~ This week's album is The KLF - Chill Out
Year of Release: 1990
Genre(s): Ambient, Sound Collage
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 44 minutes
Listen! (YouTube) This album isn't available on streaming services.
Excerpt from Pitchfork:
The interwoven pieces play out like a radio broadcast heard while half asleep, tapping into the same surreal aesthetic that David Lynch would explore in Twin Peaks’ debut just a few months later. Call it the American uncanny, in which familiar tropes are turned strange, and tantalizing snippets suggest hidden narratives—root systems of stories burrowing deep underground. Like the Swiss heritage of photographer Robert Frank, another eagle-eyed traveler of America’s backroads, the KLF’s foreignness gave them special purchase on American myths. It was all a product of the duo’s imagination; Drummond had never even been to the places they were evoking, and they only settled on the titles after recording. “We thought that it had the feeling of that sort of trip,” Drummond told X Magazine in 1991. “I love maps and atlases and I love place names, and I just sat down with the atlas and picked, you know, and saw the journey that it was and it all seemed to fit.”
Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?
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