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 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?
--
I hadn't heard this album before, nor have I heard of this artist. But this was great - from the sound of the train underlying the whole album, and snips and samples from all over, this really did feel like a cohesive album and a trip along some of the industrial parts of the south, mixed with sheep and birds and whatever other sounds.
I think part of the reason this clicked so much with me is that I miss the sound of the train. I grew up in a more industrial part of the world than I live in now, and you could hear freight trains click clacking along at most hours, along with the soft sad sound of a horn in the distance and the fog late at night. Many a pre-dawn insomnia impaired morning was spent listening to the birds and the trains and waiting for the sun to come up, flicking through radio stations turned down as low as you could so you didn't wake anybody else up.
For some British guys who'd never been to the places named in the songs they sure did a good job of capturing that same feeling - plus with some fun beats here and there for good measure!
Out of all the albums we've had on the album of the week threads so far, this is one I don't think I would have found otherwise, but I'm glad and grateful to have had the opportunity to listen.
Thanks for posting and I hope everybody reading has a nice morning :)
This album can be enjoyed both actively and passively. It's not for everybody as it's not just a music album as much as a soundtrack to a "meditation" journey.
I don't suffer from anxiety, but on occasion I might have some worries on my mind, and this album helps me return to a nice base level "normal". As you listen to the sounds and melodies you can mentally visualize landscapes and come up with narratives that overtake anything that was initially on your mind. It works best when doing nothing while listening to it.
It's also a great album to listen to when coming down from a therapeutic mushroom session.
I went to add this on Apple Music and it wasn’t there.
After searching about for a bit, it turns out the album is actually there but under a different name. The album was released to streaming as Come Down Dawn with some samples removed.
EDIT: My fault for not reading the post! You already covered it, TooFewColours.
Come Down Dawn is essentially a different album, remade with lots of sounds missing. There's no Elvis for goodness sake! This rips out the very heart of the album.
I'm unsure why they've done this, but I can only imagine it was to renew copyright in some way, or at least secure some streaming revenue.
IMHO the only version worth listening to is the original release. I still listen to it regularly, and for a while when my kids were little it was my go-to music in the car if they were tired and needed help going to sleep.
It was probably remade so it could be released on streaming services in the first place. KLF music is a copyright minefield. They once issued a release of 1987 with all the unlicensed samples removed, and it had something like three minutes of music, the rest was acapella vocals or silence with liner notes directing the listener on how to recreate the original.
Magnificent.
This is one of those albums I remember I'd always see the artwork for on old internet music forums (especially from users with a bit more left-of-field music taste), and after all these years I haven't heard it until now.
I really enjoyed my time with it, but can't but feel I wished I enjoyed it more, especially given how beloved it is. I think maybe I'm a little spoilt, as ambient/sound collage has really expanded in recent years, given how much easier it is to access, and so much easier to create.
I was just reading on the Wikipedia how they actually recorded the whole thing by just playing tapes in one 44 minute live take. In that sense it really is something of a performance piece as well as a collage. I imagine hearing this in 1990 would have been a totally different experience.
I've heard a lot of really middle-of-the-road sound collage stuff, and this definitely sits toward the front of the pack, but it felt a little too directionless to really get lost in. The best sound collage should maybe transport you away, and hit each beat like a good film does.
I think above all I enjoyed the sense of humour it has. It's not exactly a funny album, but the sound of the transposed sheep coming in and out, the reverberating elvis, the mongolian throat singer - it's hard not to crack a smile at times. Must have been fun as hell to make.
Wowza. This album was the thing to listen to as the sun was coming up and the drugs were wearing off after a rave. I’ve drifted off to this CD an untold amount of times in the early 90s both coming down and just on non-party nights to fall asleep to. Classic!
In my mind album was all ground work for Jimmy Cauty's work as part of The Orb.
Specifically one of the most beautiful examples of this plunderphonics genre Little Fluffy Clouds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fluffy_Clouds