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CD
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PICI 048CD
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Early Band Of Holy Joy existed somewhere on the cut-up side of proto-industrial music, resting between Marc Stewart & Maffia, Sonic Youth, and Current 93, and proponents of a more romantic musical language -- Virginia Astley, Dead Can Dance, and Cocteau Twins, among them -- all artists whose work BPHJ's music sat comfortably alongside across on a stream of low-budget vinyl and cassette compilations after the start of the eighties. A great leap in polish led to a deal with Rough Trade and several early '90s albums which flirted with the mainstream, with BOHJ almost an odder, less obvious cousin to Dexys Midnight Runners. When these releases failed to take off as hoped, lost years followed on smaller labels and self-released projects, until the renewed urgency of the 2016 Brutalism Begins At Home EP and increasingly majestic albums on which saw leader Johny Brown's lyricism enter a new phase. The common thread through BOHJ's four decades of recordings is the foundational warmth and humanity of Brown's words. The band's earliest recordings seemed garnered from street-level observations of neighborhood people and sights. By the time of near-hit "Tactless", their songs -- whatever the underlying impulses may have been -- had become immediate enough to overcome the mystery of a line like "Do you remember the swan that was shot in the park?" Over each of their last three albums -- Funambulist We Love You, Neon Primitives, and Dreams Take Flight -- BOHJ has bettered itself, and may now have reached their apex, Fated Beautiful Mistakes. We live in a time of generally justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So, it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy's strengths rest largely in Johny Brown and the band's ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of "Our Flighty Season Under The Flighty Sun" and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023, and it's just one of many perfect moments on this album.
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LP
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PICI 048LP
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LP version. Early Band Of Holy Joy existed somewhere on the cut-up side of proto-industrial music, resting between Marc Stewart & Maffia, Sonic Youth, and Current 93, and proponents of a more romantic musical language -- Virginia Astley, Dead Can Dance, and Cocteau Twins, among them -- all artists whose work BPHJ's music sat comfortably alongside across on a stream of low-budget vinyl and cassette compilations after the start of the eighties. A great leap in polish led to a deal with Rough Trade and several early '90s albums which flirted with the mainstream, with BOHJ almost an odder, less obvious cousin to Dexys Midnight Runners. When these releases failed to take off as hoped, lost years followed on smaller labels and self-released projects, until the renewed urgency of the 2016 Brutalism Begins At Home EP and increasingly majestic albums on which saw leader Johny Brown's lyricism enter a new phase. The common thread through BOHJ's four decades of recordings is the foundational warmth and humanity of Brown's words. The band's earliest recordings seemed garnered from street-level observations of neighborhood people and sights. By the time of near-hit "Tactless", their songs -- whatever the underlying impulses may have been -- had become immediate enough to overcome the mystery of a line like "Do you remember the swan that was shot in the park?" Over each of their last three albums -- Funambulist We Love You, Neon Primitives, and Dreams Take Flight -- BOHJ has bettered itself, and may now have reached their apex, Fated Beautiful Mistakes. We live in a time of generally justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So, it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy's strengths rest largely in Johny Brown and the band's ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of "Our Flighty Season Under The Flighty Sun" and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023, and it's just one of many perfect moments on this album.
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2CD
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PICI 036CD
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The reimagined and reworked version of Band Of Holy Joy's Dreams Take Flight album, plus a full concert recording from the band's 2021 UK tour on two CDs. Band Of Holy Joy have mutated endlessly since their origin as a kind of trash bin industrial folk collective, through early experiments in an intensely poetic form of ambient post-punk which produced cult faves like "Rosemary Smith", to near chart-contenders on a then-failing Rough Trade with songs as beautiful as anything by The Pogues, free of bitterness but with greater heart... and more recently onward to a series of albums of gently anthemic social culture and political critique. A new album in the making will add another dimension to the work of Johny Brown and his ever-evolving band, but until those sessions see the light of day, the band have created two albums from recent work, a compelling audio verité remix of the last full-length, Neon Primitives (PICI 021CD/LP), and a fine live show from their last tour dates. Both sets are available here alone, on a double compact disc with magnificent art from Inga Tillere. Unreleased material. Edition of 300.
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CD
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PICI 021CD
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Band Of Holy Joy have gone through many incarnations of musical imagination, inspiration, and output, without straying from their roots in poetic expressions of social observation and critique -- and good tunes! As are their diverse spiritual brethren -- The Mekons, Nightingales, The Pop Group -- Johny Brown and compatriots are best in periods of social upheaval and rule by opportunistic, insipid demagogues, which is why Band Of Holy Joy, like the aforementioned bands, are in the midst of a powerful renaissance. Rarely had an album title inadvertently captured the zeitgeist in as perfectly absurd a manner as the last full-length, Funambulist We Love You (PICI 011CD/LP, 2017), and its "hit" (if you will) was the metaphorical "To Leave Or Remain", which caught the shock of the Brexit vote results. What only two years ago was vaguely plaintive consideration in the face of a coming storm has now cemented into rage. In real terms, Neon Primitives' stand-out track, "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land", names the very forces of evil which have led to the ills of 2019. Not to diminish the power of the album as a whole... "Lost In The Night"'s palate-cleansing exorcism leads the way to "The Devil Had A Hold On The Land". A surprise cover of Vincent Gallo's "So Sad" is the drowsy Sunday morning hangover to "Ecstasy Snowbirds"' woke realization of a failed relationship. "Take Head Calumniators" is a call to arms against deceivers, breaking the introspection of the two previous songs. The second side features four songs of loose optimism performed in a mixture of styles. "Some People Have Winged Fortune" fractures a version of the melody from Orange Juice's "Upwards And Onwards" to a message of hope. "Urban Pilgrims", lyrically reminiscent of Band Of Holy Joy's early song craft, is a half-told tale of spiritual renewal in a landscape which would seem antipathetic to any form of rebirth. "Electric Pilgrims" links the process of aging to the nearness of satori. The epic closer "We Are Sailing To The Island Of Light" is a dark sea shanty championing the shambolic assortment of people who offer hope in dark times; a riposte to those forces of evil called out in "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land".
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LP
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PICI 021LP
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LP version. Band Of Holy Joy have gone through many incarnations of musical imagination, inspiration, and output, without straying from their roots in poetic expressions of social observation and critique -- and good tunes! As are their diverse spiritual brethren -- The Mekons, Nightingales, The Pop Group -- Johny Brown and compatriots are best in periods of social upheaval and rule by opportunistic, insipid demagogues, which is why Band Of Holy Joy, like the aforementioned bands, are in the midst of a powerful renaissance. Rarely had an album title inadvertently captured the zeitgeist in as perfectly absurd a manner as the last full-length, Funambulist We Love You (PICI 011CD/LP, 2017), and its "hit" (if you will) was the metaphorical "To Leave Or Remain", which caught the shock of the Brexit vote results. What only two years ago was vaguely plaintive consideration in the face of a coming storm has now cemented into rage. In real terms, Neon Primitives' stand-out track, "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land", names the very forces of evil which have led to the ills of 2019. Not to diminish the power of the album as a whole... "Lost In The Night"'s palate-cleansing exorcism leads the way to "The Devil Had A Hold On The Land". A surprise cover of Vincent Gallo's "So Sad" is the drowsy Sunday morning hangover to "Ecstasy Snowbirds"' woke realization of a failed relationship. "Take Head Calumniators" is a call to arms against deceivers, breaking the introspection of the two previous songs. The second side features four songs of loose optimism performed in a mixture of styles. "Some People Have Winged Fortune" fractures a version of the melody from Orange Juice's "Upwards And Onwards" to a message of hope. "Urban Pilgrims", lyrically reminiscent of Band Of Holy Joy's early song craft, is a half-told tale of spiritual renewal in a landscape which would seem antipathetic to any form of rebirth. "Electric Pilgrims" links the process of aging to the nearness of satori. The epic closer "We Are Sailing To The Island Of Light" is a dark sea shanty championing the shambolic assortment of people who offer hope in dark times; a riposte to those forces of evil called out in "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land".
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CD
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PICI 011CD
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Formed from the ashes of an unrecorded '77 punk band Speed, Band Of Holy Joy's initial musical forays were largely in the domain of industrial bricolage and occasional bursts of madness. When they re-emerged at the end of the first decade of the new century, it was on their terms. A fiercely devoted fan base led to regular, albeit low-key releases. In some aspects, they're an art collective. Inspired by the possibilities which burst forth after punk, the band's expression takes many forms. Visual artist Inga Tillere plays a large role in shaping the band's aesthetic and live events, and in musical foil James Stephen Finn, Johny's poetic vision transcends expectations without resorting to desperate reaches into esoterica. It rarely names any names, and it's far from strident, but it's undeniably a record forged by 2017. (And you don't need to look it up -- a funambulist is a tight-rope walker -- even we're not sure if that's a metaphor or simply an obtusely snappy title). Funambulist comes hot on the heels of The Clouds That Break The Sky, a three-CD boxed set of Band Of Holy Joy's pre-Rough Trade records of the early to mid-80s.
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LP
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PICI 011LP
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LP version. Formed from the ashes of an unrecorded '77 punk band Speed, Band Of Holy Joy's initial musical forays were largely in the domain of industrial bricolage and occasional bursts of madness. When they re-emerged at the end of the first decade of the new century, it was on their terms. A fiercely devoted fan base led to regular, albeit low-key releases. In some aspects, they're an art collective. Inspired by the possibilities which burst forth after punk, the band's expression takes many forms. Visual artist Inga Tillere plays a large role in shaping the band's aesthetic and live events, and in musical foil James Stephen Finn, Johny's poetic vision transcends expectations without resorting to desperate reaches into esoterica. It rarely names any names, and it's far from strident, but it's undeniably a record forged by 2017. (And you don't need to look it up -- a funambulist is a tight-rope walker -- even we're not sure if that's a metaphor or simply an obtusely snappy title). Funambulist comes hot on the heels of The Clouds That Break The Sky, a three-CD boxed set of Band Of Holy Joy's pre-Rough Trade records of the early to mid-80s.
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3LP BOX/7"
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VOD 145B3-LP
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Limited edition of 333. Includes hand-numbered certificate. A box-release covering the Band Of Holy Joy's cassette released artistic output from 1983 to 1986, split on 3 records. Band Of Holy Joy were formed in the summer of 1983 when Johny and Max found a synthesizer in the cellar of the squatted New Cross Gate house they were living in. They started messing about on this synth and started writing songs on it. The songs however were very messy and the discovery of an old plastic harmonium in a local junk shop only added to the chaos. They brought in Brett Turnbull to bring a sense of order to the noise they were creating. Brett brought along Martine Thoquenne with him and the noise in the cellar started becoming very interesting indeed. A person who is much forgotten but quite instrumental in what went on was George Lovell. John Jenkins, a photographer who was around the house, was persuaded to trade his camera for a mouth organ, tambourine and various other instruments. The Band Of Holy Joy, a completed entity, started to create strange sounds and songs began to emerge. Cultural interests at this time were 8 and 35mm film, Bertol Brecht stage play and the electronic disco sounds that could be heard and bought uptown. Subjects that fired their imaginations were media scare stories, prescription medications, institutional living, big cities, bad glamor and self-preservation in vulnerable situations. There was an affinity and shared living space with the constructivist outfit Test Dept who took Band Of Holy Joy out on tour with them resulting in very early performances in Manchester, Sheffield and Retford. When they returned to London they entered the studio and began to record and assemble tracks to go alongside the porta studio recordings, cut ups, and collages they were creating at home. They also played with Einsturzende Neubauten around this time. The band was interested in the emerging cassette culture of the day. The first cassette was Favourite Fairytales For Juvenile Delinquents which was released in 1983 More Favourite Fairytales was recorded on a four track portastudio which was released in 1984. The band would often make and play their own instruments as well as make their own films. A special post-punk pre-acid house, a creatively perfect time to be young and full of noise, word and image in London.
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