09 February 2012
Newsdesk
April 2nd sees Killing Joke release their new album, ' MMXII' (2012) , on Spinefarm Records / Universal.
When their original line-up of Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth and Big Paul reconvened in 2008 after working together intermittently, that strange voodoo once again filled the room. Individually, they have a power, but together they have something sulphurous and strong that few bands can match. Killing Joke are not an average band with an average agenda; they lock the door and let the ritual commence, and '2012' is the result.
Jaz Coleman comments: “I can’t see the point contemplating extreme life extinction – it’s good for nothing. It’s nihilism in the absolute even considering it.”
This kind of thinking sets the tone for this powerful record, with 2012 and the state of flux the key issue…
“It’s in many different calendars – the great unveiling, the sky and the earth coming together. It’s a significant date. In the autumn, there is a major planetary alignment, and on that day I’m doing this rock festival, ‘A Party At The End of The Earth’, which is going to be in New Zealand. Everything is speeding up. It’s not just our minds shrinking. We are heading towards the Eschaton and no-one really knows what’s going to happen.”
The album reflects this dark vision, but Jaz Coleman sees the great change in a more positive light – the dawning of the Age Of Aquariu s…
“All the remote viewers I know, myself included, cannot penetrate beyond. This year is about getting our collective dreams in order, restoring the biosphere, the idea of well-being as opposed to economic growth, the idea of partnership and co-creation with fellow human beings, moving away from national boundaries and more towards what Schiller and Beethoven were saying in some of their work.”
The album’s themes are political, anti-capitalist and forward-looking…
“If we can concentrate on what it can be, the dream of clean streams, of re-forestation, of permaculture, of disengaging all the banks – identifying all the majority shareholders of the top 100 corporations and dismantling them. If we start dreaming of a fairer system and defining what an elite should be – an intellectual powerhouse and not international bankers.”
The 11 album tracks are an avalanche of sound that is empowering whilst jolting you awake. They are as fascinating as chatting with Coleman, as he talks of future humans living forever but with no emotions, and of the Age Of Aquarius and the cycles of time, the shift in the earth’s electro-magnetic field, the end of extreme capitalism, the Arab Spring and how his trips to Cairo to record music have added to his belief that when Cairo falls everywhere else follows…
