Tuesday 5 August 2014

Killing Joke - Almost Red 12"

This is 'Killing Joke's' debut single, a 12" four track EP, which was very different to their later material, a blend of electronic and post punk sounds to come up with something different for its time.

The first track 'Almost Red' nearly fools you into thinking it's 'Donna Summers' disco classic 'I Feel Love' with the repetitive synthesizer sound, but then the guitar and 'Jaz Coleman's' vocals enter and you know it's something different, for me this is one of 'Killing Joke's' best tracks. Next up is 'Nervous System' which starts of sounding like 'Gang Of Four' and then again the vocals enter and you know it's not. 'Are You Receiving Me' is the third track and this starts to sound a bit more like the 'Killing Joke' that most people will know. The final track 'Turn To red' is a dub track which is the weakest of the four. Note that 'Turn To Red' has runout that just keep going on for ever, so I have faded it out in this case.

Band: Killing Joke
Label: Malicious Damage/Island
Year: 1979
Tracks:
1. Almost Red
2. Nervous System
3. Are You Receiving
4. Turn To Red

Ripped from glorious scratched vinyl:

If you like this you will have to buy a couple of albums to get all four of these tracks:
This one is reasonable if you want to hear tracks from across their releases (Only Turn to Red is on this one).
Laugh I Nearly Bought One
Laugh I Nearly Bought One

12 comments:

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Carl, drop me a line (email in profile),

jeff said...

nice one gary, "turn to red" along with "change"(which i blew out a speaker on) and "chop,chop" all time fav. Killing Joke. thanks!

Anonymous said...

How do?
The original was released independently as a 10 inch single on Malicious Damage Records with Nervous System on one side and Turn to Red and Are You Receiving on t'other (no Almost Red). I remember buying this (and I still have it) in Earth Records in Aylesbury, UK.

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Jeff, tanks for the comment, its good fun going through the old collection, I'd forgotten about this one

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Anon, thanks for the extra info, any chance of the scan of the cover of the original?

Anonymous said...

Gary,
The cover (actually just an insert) of the 10 inch is exactly the same as the 12 inch version - with the exception of mentioning 'Almost Red'. Hope that helps.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot! The first track is pretty strange but the other are really outstanding! Even better than my KJ's favourite "Night Time" LP

Punkzer0 said...

Hi anon thanks for the comment. I still love these tracks, for me these are still a few of their best.

HYPNAS said...

Hi !

I'm French.
Congratulations for your blog.
Too bad, i can't download Killing Joke.

Can you help me ?

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Hypnas, thanks for the comment.

Whats the actual problem?

I just tried and it works OK.

The link is in the first comment, copy it into your browser and follow the menu and it should work.

If not, leave another comment and tell me a little bit more whats not working.

HYPNAS said...

Hi,

I just try again. There are no more problems, I tried for several days and it works now!
Thank you for your kindness.
I'm a fan of the band since 1982 and is a pleasure to find this treasure!

You can find me here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=136184837

And also:

http://www.lastfm.fr/user/HYPNAS


All the best !!!

Punkzer0 said...

Hi again Hypnas, well done. I don't know why these sites are so flakey. Most probably because they are free, so you can't really complain.

All the best