A little while back, I typed with excited fingers about the release of new Killing Joke material, notably a spankin' new E.P. of theirs dubbed In Excelsis. The disc had been intended to whet the appetites of the loyal for a full album coming later this year (already delayed once or twice). You may remember these posts dedicated to same. Through the interwebs, I was able to hear/download the music purportedly contained on In Excelsis, but being a stodgy, greying and increasingly rotund oldster, I yearned to hold the genuine artifact in my hot little hands. Who knew that was going to be such a tough itch to scratch?
Time was when procuring a new Killing Joke single wasn't such a tall order. I scoured the remaining disc shops and import sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn but came up empty. Begrudgingly, I trawled the `Net, looking for credible outlets I could order it from (ones that weren't in, say, Finland). I saw it available on eBay, but that just didn't seem right to me. Surely, a new release from a band as critically-lauded as Killing Joke shouldn't be something that's so elusive that one needs to haggle anonymously over eBay for it. Unfortunately, for Stateside Killing Joke acolytes (or "Gatherers," as we're keen on calling ourselves), getting ahold of this disc is no easy feat.
The band's never had a particularly harmonious relationship with record labels, even well before the music industry hit the skids. They've been on majors and indies alike. They've had major distribution and promotional muscle at certain points, but somehow things invariably end up going sour. As I understand it, Killing Joke are currently trading under the auspices of a Universal offshoot with the rather juvenile name of Spinefarm. I'm sure someone with a greater working knowledge of the intricacies of the business side of the music industry can expound as to why the combined forces of Killing Joke and Spinefarm are having such a hard time of getting their product to the marketplace effectively, but evidently word got back to the good people at Spinefarm about the collective discontent of The Gathering. To placate us, they served up the below:
1) Album title: The record was originally called ‘XIII: Feast Of Fools’, as the band had a song of this title. However, when they decided to leave this song off the album, it made sense to amend the title too.
2) EP title: This was originally called ‘Industrial Suicide Tribe’ and featured ‘industrial’ artwork. However, the band eventually decided not to include this track on the EP (or the album), so again the title and the artwork had to change.
3) Release dates: any changes to the EP release date would have been due to the above; the album release date moved back because the band felt they were potentially making the finest album of their career and so didn’t want to rush things. Spinefarm supported them on this.
4) ‘Urban Primitive’; this is a short film by Youth that comes as an iTunes element with the digital version of the ‘In Excelsis’ EP; it was up on iTunes to start with, but iTunes made us take the film down and censor it due to the full frontal nudity (of Youth!). However, it is now back up there – the soundbed of the movie is a new KJ track called ‘Fresh Fever’
More recently, a woman named Marie Lecocq, allegedly working on a Belgian translation of Jaz Coleman's oft-threatened book, passed this message on from the Black Jester himself:
Dear all,
Just to let you know that KJ is heading out to China tomorrow. We are playing one concert in Beijing to 50,000 people.
With the escalation of tensions in the Korean peninsula, it should be an interesting trip. After much dissent and discussion, 12 tracks were selected out of the 20 recorded. So it is probably the longest Killing Joke album ever. I've just played back the mastered version and feel incredibly proud.
After China, I'm heading to Australasia and then I look forward to meeting you all on tour.
Jaz
PS: Jimmy Cauty has done the front cover. It is the depiction of a GWEN tower. PPS: the title of the album is "Absolute Dissent".
That all sounds quite promising, doesn't it? In any event, my good friend & fellow Gatherer Rob Moss was kind enough to snag a copy of In Excelsis for me (hence picture above), and it is a lovely thing to possess (despite iffy soda can sleeve design .... why can't they just bring back Mike Coles?)
Anyway, that's the update. Here's another new track. Enjoy.
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