Electronic group The KLF are back.
Kicking off 2021 with a bang, the group, whose music has been officially unavailable since 1992 – when they deleted their entire back catalogue – uploaded a selection of their most famous songs to streaming services.
Hitting Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music were tracks including 3 a.m. Eternal and What Time Is Love, along with the Tammy Wynette collaboration Justified & Ancient and Doctorin’ The Tardis, which samples Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part Two).
According to a statement on the band’s YouTube page, the eight-track collection, titled Solid State Logik (named after the mixing desk they used to create their biggest hits) is the first of five planned releases.
“KLF have appropriated the work done between 1 January 1987 and 31 December 1991 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords [and] The KLF,” reads the post.
“This appropriation was in order to tell a story in five chapters using the medium of streaming,” it continues. “The name of the story is Samplecity Thru Transcentral.”
Other projects set to come into fruition include Kick Out The Jams, the Pure Trance Series, and a second volume of Solid State Logik.
The statement continues: “If you need to know more about the work done by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords or The KLF, you can find truths, rumours and half-truths scattered across the internet.
“From these truths, rumours and half-truths, you can form your own opinions.
“The actual facts were washed down a storm drain in Brixton some time in the late 20th Century.”
Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, founding members of The KLF, turned their backs on music following a provocative performance at the 1992 BRIT Awards, where they performed 3AM Eternal while firing blanks from a machine gun into the audience.
“The KLF have left the music business,” said an announcer during the show, and they later staged a number of stunts to drive the point home, including dumping a dead sheep on the steps of an after-show party and burning £1 million of their royalties.
However, after an extended period of working on book and art projects, the pair announced their surprise return in two posters under a railway bridge in Shoreditch, east London, alongside graffiti referencing The KLF.
