The Black Room

Infobox Album |
Name = The Black Room
Type = Album
Artist = The KLF


Released = Unreleased
Genre = Electronica
Label = KLF Communications
Producer = Mark "Spike" Stent
Reviews =
Last album = "The White Room"
(1991)
This album = "The Black Room"
(Unreleased)
Next album = -

"The Black Room" is a never-completed LP by The KLF/The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, originally intended to be a complement to their earlier LP "The White Room".

History

"The Black Room" was referred to in interviews even before the "White Room" was released. [Morton, R. "One Coronation Under A Groove", "New Musical Express", 12 Jan 1991 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=191] )] Transcript of a Bill Drummond interview on "Bomlagadafshipoing" (Norwegian national radio house-music show), September 1991 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=521 link] ).] Originally it was planned to be hard techno (in the style of and featuring the original version of "It's Grim Up North"), then heavy-metal techno (like "America: What Time Is Love?") and finally it was to be a thrash-metal collaboration with Extreme Noise Terror. It's unknown how much of each incarnation was complete before it was scrapped and recording was re-started.

Jimmy Cauty said of it in December 1990: "The 'Black Room' album will all be this kind of electro turbo metal. It's not really industrial like, say, Throbbing Gristle, because it's coming from house and has an uplifting vibe about it. But it's so heavy it will just pin you to the floor."; [Blackmore, R., "Pump Up The Jams", Record Mirror, December 1990 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=176 link] )] while Bill Drummond said of it in 1991: "It's the compete yang to the yin of "The White Room". It'll be very very dense, very very hardcore. No sort of 'up' choruses or anthems. I think it's going to be techno-metal, I think that's gonna be the sound. Techno-metal. Which'll be... a cross between Techno and Heavy Metal. Megadeth with drum machines."Interview with Bill Drummond by Ernie Longmire, "KLF Is Going to Rock You" "X Magazine", July 1991 ( [http://cardhouse.com/x07/klf.html link] )]

Extreme Noise Terror

"The Black Room" was scheduled for release by KLF Communications for the end of 1991, which was put back to March 1992Fact|date=February 2007. At some point, grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror were employed, and the two bands were still recording in February 1992 when The KLF scrapped the sessions. "What actually happened," said ENT singer Dean "was that Bill heard us on [John Peel| [John] Peel] when he was in the bath and got in touch. They had wanted to do rock versions of their songs with Motörhead but something fell through, so he rang us... The message said it's Bill from The KLF, but I thought they said 'the ALF' so I didn't take much notice... Later, we got anther message saying it was definitely Bill from The KLF and I said 'f--- off! What does he want with us?' But it all got explained eventually." Asked how they have found working with "the pop genius of the age" the band agreed on a party line: "Just say that he's mad, barking bleedin' mad..."Kelly, D. "Welcome To The Sheep Seats", "New Musical Express", 29 Feb 1992 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=297 link] )]

Mark Stent, the engineer/producer for these sessions, thought the music was pure genius. "The most awesome track for me was one called "The Black Room and Terminator 10" which was like a very slow tempo thrash. It was mad. It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and it would have shown a lot of people up because it was as ballsy as hell. Guitars screaming all over the place, Bill doing his vocals and Dean (of ENT) doing his. There was such a raw power to it. It was so different from anything anyone else had ever heard. This was really heavy." ["Who Killed The KLF?", "Select", July 1992 [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=315 link] ]

One track was released from this collaboration, a metal version of "3 a.m. Eternal". The two bands also performed together at the 1992 BRIT Awards ceremony, a performance which "NME" listed at number 4 in their "top 100 rock moments". [ [http://www.nme.com/news/kurt-cobain/6010 "100 Rock Moments"] , NME.com. Retrieved 21 April 2006.]

Bad Wisdom

In "Bad Wisdom", Drummond said:cquote|Z asks about the Black Room album that me and Jimmy as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu started but were too afraid to complete. I tell him how, when I was standing in the twilight of the recording booth, the microphone in front of me, Jimmy's magnificent metal guitar riffs roaring in my headphones, a voice came out of me which I had never heard before, words flowed that I had never written and a precipice appeared before me. I crept forward and looked over the edge: the abyss. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's LP, The Black Room, was never finished.

But Z keeps talking and I'm warming to his persuasions. He feels that Jimmy and I are evading our responsibilities; we should return to our war-horse and complete the task. And yes, right now I believe Z may be right. But maybe Jimmy and I should wait until we are both over fifty before we record the sound of us as battle-scarred veterans of a hundred mercenary campaigns, when the music would not be drawn from our fading libidos but from the horror of life spent confronting that abyss - kinda like Milton backed up by Megadeth. [Drummond, Bill and Mark Manning, "Bad Wisdom", p206 (ISBN 0-14-026118-4)]

Bootlegs

Instrumental outtakes purportedly from the February 1992 Black Room sessions circulate. However, they have been impossible to verify since they are guitar parts only and feature none of Bill Drummond's vocals. Asked if the sessions would ever be released, Jimmy Cauty said "There is a bootleg flying around. I haven't heard it. I thought I had the only copy, but I guess there might have been another one made." [Butler, B., interview with Jimmy Cauty for "The Big Issue Australia", 18 June 2003 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=538 link] )]

References