I've stuck with them, albeit fairly loosely, over the years, picking up the occasional album and catching up with their early 1980s material. I've also been a huge fan of their forays into remixes and dub soundscapes, guided by original and returning bassist Youth aka Martin Glover. Throughout, Jaz Coleman's state of the world lyrics and "savagely strident vocals" remain undimmed.
The original Killing Joke line-up reformed in full in 2008, have released several albums of new material and are touring in 2023, including an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 12th March.
Today's
selection starts in 1985, with a track from Night Time, and ends in 2014
with a remix from the In Dub 3CD collection. In between you'll find
remixes, album tracks and singles and some seriously heavy sounds. Brace yourselves.
1) Europe (Album Version) (1985)
2) Wardance (The RAF Mix By Zeus B. Held) (1986)
3) Seeing Red (Jagz Kooner Remix) (2004)
4) Mass (Campaign Collection Mix By Youth & Paul Wright) (1996)
5) Love Like Blood (Gestalt Mix By Chris Kimsey, Chris Nagle & Killing Joke) (1985)
6) Democracy (United Nations Mix By Black Sun aka Youth & Ott) (1996)
7) Loose Cannon (Album Version) (2003)
8) Exorcism (Vatican Ambient Dub) (Remix By Youth) (2014)
9) America (Single Version) (1988)
1985: Love Like Blood EP: 5
1985: Night Time: 1
1986: Sanity EP: 2
1988: America EP: 9
1996: Democracy EP: 4, 6
2003: Killing Joke: 7
2004: Seeing Red EP: 3
2014: In Dub: 8
They often used to pop up on The Tube that tea-time telly show on a Friday in the '80s. I've always been intrigued by them as despite getting a fair bit of exposure back in the day they consistently reached only the lower reaches of the music charts, very consistently in fact. It's unusual to only ever make it to the 50-59 position, ... with every release. A loyal following obviously, over a very long period of time.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Alyson, I guess I'm one of the many who contributed to their "lower reaches" chart placings by not being one of the core of loyal followers and intermittently dipping in and out of their album and single releases.
DeleteJaz Coleman was always excellent value in printed and on-screen interviews, you never quite knew where he was going to go. There are loads of Jaz gems on YouTube but this is a take-no-prisoners (and relatively brief) rant on musicians going into politics https://youtu.be/T9Z1uXjbo_w