Josef K \ It's Kinda Funny [TWI 022 / CD]
Crépuscule presents It's Kinda Funny, an anthology collection of classic singles and radio session tracks by iconic Scottish post-punk guitar group Josef K, originally issued between 1979 and 1982.
As well as the three legendary 45s on Postcard Records (Radio Drill Time, It's Kinda Funny and Chance Meeting), the album also includes both singles released on Crépuscule (Sorry For Laughing, Missionary) as well as the original Absolute version of Chance Meeting from 1979. All the original b-side tracks are also included, joined on the CD by the band's John Peel radio sessions transmitted in 1981.
"Josef K were The Sound of Young Scotland, together with Orange Juice, whose guitars were also radiant and brittle, whose rhythms were also scrubbed and blunt, whose vocals were also proud and serious, but who sounded like another group entirely" (Paul Morley)
"Josef K was about the heroic Outsider suavely surfing across the fraught surface of their albino funk fracas. Haig sounds high on anxiety, finding an odd, giddy euphoria in doubt" (Simon Reynolds)
Cover art by Jean-François Octave. Inner bag with liner notes and archive photography by Simon Clegg and others. Outer sleeve printed on matt reverse board. The CD format is housed in a trifold digipack with 8 page booklet.
Vinyl tracklist:
A1. Romance
A2. Radio Drill Time
A3. It's Kinda Funny
A4. Sorry for Laughing
A5. Chance Meeting
A6. Missionary
B1. Heaven Sent
B2. Revelation
B3. Crazy to Exist
B4. The Angle
B5. Pictures (of Cindy)
B6. Final Request
B7. Chance Meeting (Absolute)
CD tracklist:
1. Romance
2. Radio Drill Time
3. It's Kinda Funny
4. Sorry for Laughing
5. Chance Meeting
6. The Missionary
7. Heaven Sent
8. Heart of Song
9. Revelation
10. Crazy to Exist
11. Pictures (of Cindy)
12. Final Request
13. Pictures
14. No Glory
15. Endless Soul
16. Applebush
17. One Angle
18. Second Angle
19. Radio Drill Time (demo)
20. Chance Meeting (original)
Available on vinyl, CD or digital (MP3 or FLAC). Vinyl format includes digital copy. To order please first select correct shipping option (UK, EU or Rest of World) and then click on Add To Cart button. Digital copies are delivered to customers by email link.
Or, you can order with the option of tracked shipping from our friends at Burning Shed (click here to order)
Reviews:
"Josef K specialised in cerebral, nerve-jangling funk, like disco played by Franz Kafka (or Franz Ferdinand). They also had some of the best, most insidious guitar riffs ever, notably The Missionary and Revelation, although they could do mordant: see It's Kinda Funny. What's no laughing matter is this music's dour brilliance" (Classic Pop, 03/2016)
"Between 1979 and 1981 Josef K were the spiky, austere counterpoint to fellow Postcard label luminaries Orange Juice, named after Kafka's anti-hero, and at heart as much Mittel-Europa as they were Edinburgh. Their Postcard debut, Radio Drill Time, was indebted to Gang of Four's pale, itchy funk before a prowling It's Kinda Funny became the first A-side to sound quintessentially theirs. Likewise the original, delicious Chance Meeting was radically made-over - tauter, faster, laced with brass - for their final Postcard outing. Two Crepuscule singles of the era underline just how Josef K chopped and changed, from Sorry For Laughing's almost Orange Juice-influenced jollity to the frantic heaviness of The Missionary. 4/5 stars (Mojo, 05/2016)
"Josef K created the blueprint for the UK indie scene that followed. This singles collection represents the group at their best: literate, terse with an edge to their snappy, melodic songs. Scottish post-punk at its finest. 9/10" (Louder Than War, 05/2016)
"Postcard Records had a knack of finding the best of the outsiders in Scottish post-punk. Josef K were probably the band with the least commercial success, but whose music has aged the best. Arch where Orange Juice were twee, otherworldly where Aztec Camera were gauche, Paul Haig and his band took elements from Subway Sect and the Velvets and married them to scratchy, skeletal funk. It's the singles that sees them best remembered. Chance Meeting has an almost Motown bliss added to its austerity, and It's Kinda Funny is a startling record for a band of such relative youth. Adding a much needed literacy and refinement to the glitter of 80s pop, Josef K are sorely missed. 9/10" (Vive le Rock, 04/2016)
"Somebody must have been telling lies about Josef K, because in the quarter-century since they splintered they've been so diversely mythologized, lionized, and revered you might believe there were actually four or five groups on Scotland's early 80s postpunk scene who just happened to share the same name. For starters there was the Postcard version, label boss Alan Horne's vision of the group as the neat Edinburgh spirit to spike the sparkling Glasgow pop of Orange Juice. Then, of course, there's the sharp-suited puritans you might read about in the works of Kevin Pearce, the mod missing link between the crooning Vic Godard and the shambling June Brides. And that's just a step away from the twee indie-pop slant: Josef K as the jagged romantics who essentially invented the Wedding Present. And more recently there's been the Franz Ferdinand angle: Josef K as the band who dreamt up the smartly spiky pop that married the stark expressionism of CBGBs to a suave Frank Sinatra sigh before the Strokes were even struck" (Pitchfork, 12/2006)
"Josef K were Postcard's cutting edge - spiky, insouciant, sardonic, existentially loaded and debonair. And throughout, their melodies remained pop at heart. Now post-punk punk-funk is the current alt rock flavour, the Edinburgh band sound more prescient still" (Mojo, 08/2004)
"For all their slightly delirious talk of fun, laughter and craziness, Josef K were among the most austere and monochromatic of post-punksters. Never mind - 20 years on, the furious, scrabbling textures of these songs are a savage pleasure in their own right" (Uncut, 04/2002)