Josef K - 'Entomology' (Domino) Released 20/11/06

There are so many pathways that lead to the heart – the opening line from ‘Radio Drill Time’, the album starter. Where does the heart lie here then? Well if the fact that Josef K is a character from a Kafka novel entitled ‘The Trial’ is anything to go by, then this is the sound of a tortured heart. However in this instance Josef K is the name of a Scottish post punk band, first signed in 1979 to botany student run Postcard Records, which at the time also had carried other bands like The Fire Engines, Aztec Camera and Orange Juice. Josef K were the sound of young Scotland, before Franz Ferdinand, before Idlewild, before Teenage Fanclub, before Primal Scream. They however ended up influencing many bands of the future like The Wedding Present and Propaganda. Even in 1982 after they’d split they notched up a top ten hit with jangly guitar powered ‘The Missionary’. This was the emerging sound of C81 & C86 ‘indie’. This was a band of the future.

Josef K never released an album even though they were signed to a record label for 3 years. Instead more than 25 years later we have a collection of songs containing their long aborted album ‘Sorry For Laughing’, some b-sides and yes those Peel sessions. What of ‘Entomology’ then? Generally it is full of creatively pummelling drums cosying up to spiky spidery guitar that at times wouldn’t be out of place alongside a track laid down by art school rebels Bauhaus. Within this album you can hear the emergence of a new musical style for the 80s, something with independent thinking, something that would spawn many minions later on, from industrial to shoegaze and beyond.

For example The Smiths took great influence from Aztec Camera and the guitar opening on ‘Heads Watch’ could easily have been early Johnny Marr – maybe Josef K prove he wasn’t such a genius afterall. Other songs like ‘Endless Soul’ and ‘Sense of Guilt’ run parallels with The Cure, minus Robert Smith, but with Paul Haig on vocals instead. This album serves as a great introduction to Josef K, showcasing the majority of their post punk like material. It also provides an insight into the excitement in the music scene around the beginning of the eighties, a time when experimentation with sound was encouraged and supported. Listen with great interest.