JOSEF K
Entomology
Domino Records
Re-discover Scottish pop from a time before Franz Ferdinand.
Back when the 1970s ebbed their way into a new decade, Paul Haig awoke in his dreary Scottish surroundings and found himself unable to communicate to those around him. Strange feelings of alienation stirred within him and his once-familiar environs turned foreign. Together with some like-minded compatriots, he found solace in the earliest Buzzcocks singles and wrote a series of scathing indictments of his own hometown. Although never released, the singles that leaked out of the doomed 1980 album Sorry for Laughing drew favourable comparisons to Manchester’s emerging Joy Division (indeed many historically-minded critics have dismissed Josef K as Joy Division’s poor Scottish cousins).
However, tracks like "Heads Watch" and "Variation of Scene" with their vivid depictions of everyday life, find the band far more grounded than Ian Curtis and company ever were. The pop sensibilities deeply buried beneath the noise and feedback of early tracks like "Radio Drill Time" and "Final Request" would become more polished by their 1981 followup,, The Only Fun in Town. "Pictures (of Cindy)" and "Forever Drone," along with "Fun ’n’ Frenzy" reveal a band more at home with their pop hooks, less intent on being seen as clever noise merchants.
By 1982 it was over, Paul Haig renewed his contact with the world, and the members of Josef K went their separate ways, bequeathing Scottish music a pop legacy layered in angular guitars, feedback and martial rhythms.
|
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.