What will follow in the days ahead will be a trilogy of entries showcasing rare and unreleased (or privately-circulated) material celebrating the catalog of The KLF. Wherever possible I will include the recordings for readers and fellow Discordians to savor for their own. Let’s dive right in...
Space Exploration: A Lost Ambient Milestone
(orig. pub. 2014/05/04)
I cannot express the level of my excitement in finally hearing this special recording. This new disc was to be the ninth in the series of unofficial reworkings of the KLF’s catalog – masterfully engineered and easily one of the finest ambient recordings of the year. Sadly, due to issues beyond the producer’s control, the disc will not be released to the public.
The disc contains a 2014 72-minute epic rework of the original Space LP created 24 years ago, originally as a collaboration between Dr. Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty – the original line-up of The Orb.
For those who aren’t familiar with the outstanding KLF: Recovered & Remastered unofficial releases from my past entries, let me bring you up to speed.
1987. British acid house. Drummond. Cauty. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The Timelords. The JAMs. One World Orchestra. 2K. The Stadium House Trilogy. Doctorin’ the Tardis. Anarchism. The White Room. The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Top of the Pops. America: What Time is Love? The Manual. A lost road movie. The K Foundation. Extreme Noise Terror. Why Sheep? Waiting. The Rites of Mu. Chill Out. The birth of Ambient House. Burning a million quid on the Isle of Jura. Abandon all art now. And Space.
There. That about sums it up.
20 years into the silence that followed the K Foundation’s exit from celebrity a man surfaced who set himself to the task of recovering and remastering the KLF’s catalog to fill the void left in Cauty and Drummond’s absence.
The first six releases, catalog #KLF 001 RE – KLF 006 RE were brilliant, and the sixth release, Live From The Lost Continent 2012 presented listeners with a 77-minute stadium-packed concert that never was.
Following this triumph, two more released emerged – KLF MINUS-ONE and KLF MINUS-FOUR, each better than the EP before.
But our hero had one last stupendous project up his sleeve. And in April of 2014, it was complete.
A message from its creator revealed that MINUS-SIX was to be:
“…a 72 minute remodel of the classic SPACE release, sounding like a cross between ‘Silence’ (from Pete Namlook’s legendary Fax +49-69/450464 label), SPACE, and classic ambient drone releases. It’s almost like Trainspotting for KLF fans.”
Listen to the original Space LP (1990) here.
The final piece is a monumental achievement – a new Music for Airports, or perhaps a new Selected Ambient Works Vol II. It effectively unites sparse white-noise drones with all of the familiar elements of the original Space record which made it so memorable. It is brilliantly subtle, while simultaneously making the sounds of simulated space flight an exciting and dramatic experience.
Then came the crushing news – the MINUS SIX project had suddenly been halted, and there were to be no more releases in the series.
I make no exaggeration when I state that, with this loss, the ambient music audience is experiencing its own Nick Drake, or more accurately – its own SugarMan.
At least this dude got his own movie.
Worse yet – because Rodriguez had a nation celebrating his work for generations an ocean away from his quiet daily life, and at least Nick Drake experienced posthumous success – becoming a household name in the years which followed his untimely demise.
But production of MINUS-6 has been cancelled. Quite sadly, the millennium’s ambient and drone audience and the millions of listeners who grew up with the KLF may never hear this record.
Its legend is shrouded in mystery. Will KLF fans ever know the engineer’s name? Why the sudden cease just before unveiling his holy grail?
But perhaps it is the legend and the mystery that adds a touch of vitality to the series.
And I still have hope. The K Foundation announced a 23-year moratorium on all projects beginning November 1995. Perhaps, in honor of the 2018 reformation of the KLF, our mysterious friend will emerge.
My sincerest hope is that the man behind these nine fantastic EPs one day receives the recognition (and listenership) that he deserves.
If you’re out there – Bring the beat back.
Tune in to The KLF: Recovered & Remastered – KLF MINUS-SIX - This Is Not What Space Is About in full.
