Review: The KLF – Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds – by John Higgs

The KLF were one of my favourite bands as a teenager and partly responsible for introducing me to dance music. When they disappeared from the music industry it was a great disappointment and although they featured quite a lot in the press, their whole existence mainly remains an enigma. This book pieces together the fragments that are the KLF. Heavily centred on Bill Drummond’s life we read some truly magic tales. From, as their manager, sending Echo & The Bunnymen on tour to Iceland so he could magically stand on a manhole cover in Liverpool docks, we meet many strange anecdotes about a group that formed and based their philosophy on Discordianism. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu take their name from the Illuminatus trilogy that introduces the world to Discordianism, a worship of Eris, the Goddess of Chaos and where the number 23 is sacred. One thing is for sure is that Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, as the KLF, were totally off their heads. They filled a void in the early 1990s and became pioneers of the electronic dance music industry but they always struggled to fit into the music industry. There is a longing for more and eventually they find their place in the world of art, having burned a million pounds in cash to achieve their status there.
I have read recent talk of a reforming of the KLF coming soon and with the 23 year period of their freezing coming to an end in 2018 I truly look forward to them reappearing from the abyss and producing some more enlightening driving beats, something that all of their fans would truly appreciate.