Context
From 1987 to 1992, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty released music under names including The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) and The KLF. Following a run of five consecutive UK top-five singles, The KLF executed a high-profile retirement from the music business and deleted their entire back catalogue, declaring that "For the foreseeable future, there will be no further record releases from any past, present or future name attached to our activities." Drummond and Cauty's subsequent art project, the K Foundation, disposed of The KLF's earnings, including by burning one million pounds of it, money which was originally provisionally earmarked by the duo for millennial celebrations. Bill Drummond: "Originally we were going to invest the whole lot in some capital growth fund and spend it all on one big event, maybe at the millennium".
In the four years following The KLF's retirement, Drummond and Cauty's musical output consisted only of a limited edition single released in Israel and Palestine ("K Cera Cera"), and a contribution to The Help Album ("The Magnificent").
In 1997, British artist Jeremy Deller pioneered the Acid Brass concept, collaborating with the Williams Fairey Brass Band to interpret and perform classic acid house tracks as brass arrangements. Deller was described by one source as a prankster, a notion frequently applied to Drummond and Cauty themselves. In February 1997, Drummond was contacted by his former Big in Japan bandmate Jayne Casey, who was helping to organise an arts festival in Liverpool and had noticed that Acid Brass' repertoire included The KLF's "What Time Is Love?". Drummond attended the festival performance and heard "What Time Is Love?" performed as the encore, during which he telephoned Cauty. Cauty and Drummond together attended a 19 April Acid Brass performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Collaborative work ensued between Drummond, Cauty, and Deller, in which the Acid Brass rendition of their track was incorporated into a composition designed to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first work.
A comeback of The KLF was implied by two black and white full-page adverts placed in the 21 August 1997 issue of Time Out. The first proclaimed "They're Back. The Creators of Trance. The Lords of Ambient. The Kings of Stadium House. The Godfathers of Techno Metal. The Greatest Rave Band In The World. Ever! 2K. For 23 minutes Only". The second stated "'Jeremy Deller presents '1997 What The Fuck's Going On'", a reference to The JAMs' debut album 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?). It continued, "Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond invite you to a 23 minute performance during which the next 840 days of our lives will be discussed". The Independent looked forward to the event, saying that "It was just a matter of time before Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond hatched another prank and put a grin back on the face of pop music." "You just ache for them to be No. 1 again....", they said, but "One hopes they are not about to shoot themselves in the foot" because "the idea walks the tightrope between lunacy and brilliance.... the pop world's countdown to the millennium surely starts here".
Read more about this topic: Fuck The Millennium
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
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“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
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