Josef K - The Sound of Young Scotland

A gorgeous girl's face stares at me without betraying any emotion. Two magnetic eyes, one barely visible, a voluptuous mouth begging to be kissed. A dazzling snapshot overwhelms a heart that until then had been at ease. Just to the right, a white inscription that, without crowding the image, stands out clearly against two shades of grey blending into one another. "Paul Haig", it reads. I immediately rush toward her, but the shop assistant, gently, holds me back and tells me to look for a copy among a pile of records stacked in the back room, rather than snatch that angelic vision away from the unsuspecting passersby drawn to the shop window. "Don't disturb her," he says, and how could I. Eager, I run to the back and start flipping quickly through one record after another: there's Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rolling Stones, Fugazi, Pil, Sonny Boy Williamson... nothing, where is it? It has to be mine, but I can't find it... Gripped by the impatience of a lover anxious to meet his beloved, I start rifling through the stacks at an alarming speed; a record falls hard onto the floor. The noise isn't loud, but it's not negligible either, you know how it is. But the shop assistant, busy with other matters, doesn't seem to notice. Just a quick glance to check the damage — none, luckily. What is it? Ah, an old academic blues compilation (Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan...), well, it can stay there as far as I'm concerned, at least until the long-awaited encounter finally happens. It's not rudeness, mind you, just passion, I tell myself. Then, Prince, Hot Tuna, John Mayall, and finally, her. I stand frozen for more than a moment, then seize it violently. But, enchantment and torment both, in the blink of an eye the illusion has already vanished.

The record in question, “Chain” by Paul Haig, dated 1989, unfolds across a handful of tracks steeped in romantic electronic songwriting, not too far removed from Billy Mackenzie's post-Associates work, while the magnificent cover artwork that had so captivated me features a portrait of Audrey Hepburn by Angus McBean. I love Audrey Hepburn.

The record turned out to be good, fortunately, and I say fortunately because it pushed me to give the Josef K another try, a band that, until then, had never won me over. I don't know why, I thought they were too derivative. How wrong I was…

Josef K were formed in Edinburgh in 1978 on the initiative of Paul Haig, Ron Torrance, Malcom Ross and Malcon McCormack (later replaced by David Weddell). Initially known as Tv Art, they would soon change their name in homage to Kafka's “The Trial”. A handful of singles, an aborted album, Sorry For Laughing – scrapped due to a perfectionist self-sabotage that probably had no real reason to be – another, The Only Fun In Town, released when the band was already a ghost of itself, and a detached, even snobbish attitude towards audience and critics alike, were enough to build a small legend. After just one album, they announced they wanted to split up, and that's more or less what happened. Haig would go on to a thoroughly respectable solo career, with its ups and downs, Ross would pass through Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, while Weddel and Torrance worked with Nicholas Currie, later known as Momus, in Happy Family.

The “Sound of Young Scotland” reacting against English dominance, an explosive mix of punk existentialism and crystalline pop attitude. The old/new British pop scented with new wave, the cult of Edwin Collins and Alan Horn's Postcard label, and so, Orange Juice, Josef K precisely, Aztec Camera, the Go-Betweens, in a music that, while far from uniform, recognised the same forefathers: Velvet Underground, Television, Talking Heads, Joy Division.

A strange creature, Josef K, a shining star for a very brief period, then suddenly imploded, due to the overbearing personality of a singer incapable of being part of a band, whose intentions, it seems, moved at twice the speed of his actions. Already looking ahead to a solo career he would launch shortly after, Haig decreed the end of that experience, withdrawing from the spotlight and consigning Josef K to cult status. From the wreckage came one of the most followed (often unwittingly) templates for much British indie-pop (and beyond) to come, and even today more than a few playful acts still draw on its stylistic traits.

Josef K were pop, but also post-punk, funk, and knew how to combine darkness and romanticism, abrasive guitars and driving, almost dance-like rhythms, even though their sound, seemingly uniform, proved to be ever-shifting across that brief creative arc. The new compilation, Entomology, on Domino (2006), is just right for grasping the mutant nature of nuances that aren't exactly imperceptible, yet aren't always acknowledged by those who have made Josef K a subject of criticism.

Containing roughly equal parts tracks from Sorry For Laughing and The Only Fun In Town, plus singles and three cuts from the Peel Sessions of 22 June 1981, Entomology reveals the reasons that led Haig to shelve the debut. Sorry For Laughing, later reissued by Ltm in the '90s, though steeped in that neurotic edge that became its trademark, boasts a polished, poppy sound, in some tracks even one where the rhythms surrender wholeheartedly to a new wave embrace. In the manner of Talking Heads on “Heads Watch” and “Sense Of Guilt”, tainted by background noise redolent of proto-industrial sounds à la Wire on “Drone”. An ecstasy of existential romanticism on “Endless Soul”, not far from the style of their cousins Orange Juice, one of the tracks that perhaps best defines the so-called Postcard Sound.

The Only Fun In Town, from '81, comes closer to what Josef K had intimately meant to express, namely that overflowing, dark vitality which, according to contemporary accounts, seems to have characterised their live shows. Driving rhythms, sharp guitars clattering like razors, the dark vocals of a Paul Haig who manages to bring to life that industrial, assembly-line alienation so typical of many artists of the period. Swift, incisive tracks like “Crazy To Exist”, already released in a live version on the single “Radio Drill Me”, mechanical, distorted, speak of a darkness of the soul that finds kindred spirits in the Factory roster. Then there's the frenetic post-punk of “16 Years”, where the instruments seem to resound in separate, airtight compartments, each clearly defined in its own forward motion, a bit like Joy Division on “Unknown Pleasures“. Obsessive and sickly punk-funk, “Forever Drone” shows a melody battered by guitars hissing morbid dissonances. These tracks represent the classic Josef K sound, the one they'll be remembered for, even if calling it a 'classic sound' for a band that released only one album, or little more, is perhaps something of a stretch. Be that as it may, The Only Fun In Town (and indeed the rest of the band's output) can rightly be considered among the classics of British post-punk, the perfect link between post-'77 sounds and the indie-pop still to come.

Singles deserve a separate mention, scattered as they are across the various compilations and reissues that followed the split. We can't not start with the magnificent “It's Kinda Funny”, from November '80, an atypical track in the Josef K catalogue, an imploding ballad tinged with analogue electronics, a slow-burning killer that struggles to contain a decadent, jilted-lover mood. Morrissey before Morrissey, while Morrissey was still amusing himself with the New York Dolls.

The singles parade by dressed in a very pronounced melodic appeal, and it could hardly be otherwise. Proof of this is, once again, a stunning “Chance Meeting”, the very first Josef K release, dated November '79, on Absolute, later reissued by Postcard just before The Only Fun In Town. And it's this latter version that we prefer, a superb wave-tinged pop song that, with a beefier production, would have fit perfectly on a Xtc's “Drums And Wires” or on the Smiths' “The Queen Is Dead”.

Also worth remembering are “Radio Drill Time/Crazy To Exist” and “The Farewell Single”, released by Crepuscule, with which Josef K closed up shop, after the split had already taken place, to be precise.

As for the discography references (which you can find in the box on the left), it's essential to have the Ltm reissue of The Only Fun In Town, which includes tracks from Sorry For Laughing, while anyone wanting to approach Josef K for the first time can perfectly well start with the excellent compilation Entomology, 2006, released by Domino.

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