Jehovahkill

Julian Cope's seventh album and fifth album for Island Records, Peggy Suicide (1991), concerned itself with environmental issues, and was a critical comeback for Cope, if not quite a commercial one. During the world tour in promotion of Peggy Suicide, Julian Cope, his guitarist, drummer and saxophonist Rooster Cosby and guitar technician Rizla Deutsch, all of whom listened to krautrock in the early 1970s, had debated "the psychie mix that had created krautrock's singular take on Western music," and reached the conclusion that they could distill "the krautrock psyche" into a complete attitude which they would then apply to Cope's new album, much like that had with the R&B and Detroit soul styles on Peggy Suicide. In 1992 Cope delivered his eleven-track Julian H. Cope album to Island Records. However, its "dark and challenging" content, with its lowly mixed drums and highly mixed vocals, was not well received by the label, with their managing director Marc Marot calling it "the most sonically unappealing album he'd ever heard," and Cope's A&R man going as far as to describe "Slow Rider" as "the worst song he'd heard by anybody in his life". As such, Island refused to issue the album. When Cope explained that it was what he had set out to achieve and "would prefer to stand or fall by the results," Marot allowed him additional recording sessions at the label's Fallout Shelter Studios. Although the existing content remained almost untouched, the album, re-titled Jehovahkill, was "ameliorated" with six further songs, including "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fine", "The Mystery Trend" and "No Hard Shoulder To Cry On". Cope noted the extra recording sessions made the album heavier and "more heathen" than it had been in its previous incarnation, with one session culminated prematurely after smoke emitted from the studio's multi-core processor. ==Themes==

are depicted on the album cover. Cope would later describe Jehovahkill as the second instalment of an album trilogy that concerns Mother Earth, with the first being Peggy Suicide and the third being Autogeddon; in particular, Jehovahkill departs from the environmental concerns of Peggy Suicide and instead celebrates ancient, pre-Christianity heathen impulses, while noting what Cope, a self-described Odinist, believed to be "the destructiveness of mainstream religion." Cope said at the time of the release that his interest in such subjects "just seemed to start from my life, I just found myself staggering towards it, really. It certainly wasn't anything I had been interested in before, but I found myself led down this route by reading people like Gurdjieff, then Colin Wilson|[Colin] Wilson and then on to Lethbridge." The album name, a pun of Jehovah and "overkill", was described by journalist Andy Gill as perhaps referring "to the Judaeo-Christian repression of our natural pagan energies and inclinations; or perhaps to the kicking Cope hands out here to the deity." The album cover depicts the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis, a Neolithic site with a cruciform layout that predates Christ by at least 2,000 years. In his book ''How the Neolithics Influenced Rock 'n' Roll'', Andrew Johnstone called the cover design a "bold iconographic approach," writing that "[t]he isolation of the monument's structure emphasises its completeness and the dramatic statement the builders made far greater than a photograph would. The monument moves away from being a stone structure, to that of being a motif or logo." Cope had photographed Avebury for the sleeve of Peggy Suicide, and finding the monument's "pull" to be so great, he moved to the village of Avebury with his family in early 1992. while "Fear Loves This Place" has been interpreted by critic Dave Morrison as "a tale of domestic brutality." Asked by Kevin Jackson of The Independent if he thought the album's themes would alienate fans, Cope replied: "Oh, loads, but I never started out my career with any intention of tugging along all of them, and I've alienated people throughout. If I've had a period of real obscurity, I've alienated people who want me to be a pop singer. I'll go back and have hits, and I alienate people who are so messed up they only want delicate flowers to be their heroes. But hopefully I'll haul a few more along as well." ==Musical style==

Despite Jehovahkill's heathen themes, Ned Raggett of AllMusic described the album as primarily a musical project, with the music being "first and foremost" ahead of the lyrics. the 70-minute album is split into three separate "Phases," – "Phase 1" (tracks 1–6), "Phase 2" (tracks 7–11) and "Phase 3" (tracks 12–16), – not unlike the concept of four "Phases" on Peggy Suicide. Cope described Jehovahkill as containing a "heathen, dark folk sound," while Jon Savage of The Guardian noted the appearance of a "melodic folk" sound. while Jim DeRogatis called it psychedelic rock. Cavanagh highlights its array of "blowouts", melodic pop, funk, and "a mad rush instrumental". bands such as Faust (pictured in 2007) were a key influence on Jehovahkill. Many of the songs start with simplistic acoustic guitar intros before, according to Andy Gill of The Independent, developing via overdub "accretions", "some into retro-hippy jams of boundless cosmicity like 'Necropolis', some into rave chants like 'Poet Is Priest...'." "Soul Desert" was described by Raggett as picking up "where Peggy Suicide left off with 'Las Vegas Basement', with the same low-key late-night vibe." Cope sings both subtly and hardly on the track, which becomes more uptempo in its second half. The tuneful, laid-back "The Mystery Trend" was described by Raggett as "rural blues-gone-drone rock." The instrumental "Necropolis" bears a strong krautrock influence, revealing Cope's infatuation with 1970s German rock music, and was cited as one of the "absurd" tracks on the album, alongside "No Hard Shoulder to Cry On" and "Know (Cut My Friend Down)", by critic Alec Foege. Starting with a garage rock riff before centring on numerous soundscapes, with one of the few lyrics being its title, "Poet Is Priest…" is a krautrock funk song, featuring "acoustic astrology" from astronomer and musician Fiorella Terenzi, and rave influences. An unedited version, running to almost 22 minutes, was included on the bonus disc of the 2006 deluxe edition of the album. The self-mocking "Julian H. Cope" was described by Foege as "an ironic advertisement" for the musician. A tribute to both Neu! and The Stooges, "The Subtle Energies Commission", centred around a whooshing drum and cymbal rhythm, features numerous phased drums and touches of reverbed keyboard. "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fine" is a pop song with a regenerative lyrical theme, while "Peggy Suicide is Missing" serves as the album's coda. ==Release==

Jehovahkill was released on 19 October 1992 by Island Records; its CD release was pressed onto a single-disc, while the LP was packaged as a double album pressed onto only three sides, one for each "Phase", with the fourth side showing an etching instead. The album debuted at number 20 on the UK Albums Chart two weeks later, before falling to number 39 the following week. The artwork designer behind the American release of the album renamed "Necropolis" to "Necropolis (Neu 2)" without permission from Cope, who later reflected the designer had not heard of Neu!, so the word was meaningless to them but "in a matter which satisfied them." Within a week of the album's release, Island Records dropped Cope from their roster, claiming, "his critical appeal is on the up but his commercial appeal is dropping." The dismissal caused a large amount outrage in the music press, with Select even publishing the "Drude Aid" form, with the intention of mailing it to Marot, asking why the label dropped Cope instead of several "lame head" acts signed to the label. Houghton reflected that Cope's popularity surged in the aftermath, appearing on the cover of the NME in January 1993 with the headline "Endangered Species" and, in two parallel readers' polls for "Best Male Artist" in NME and Melody Maker, he came second in the former poll after Morrissey and third in the latter. At the time of the dropping, Cope had just recorded Rite, which instead saw release in Germany in 1994. In October 2006, a "Second Edition" of Jehvoahkill was released by Island Records, containing material from Julian H. Cope and the "Fear Loves This Place" single including the Dictaphone-recorded "Nothing". ==Critical reception==

Jehovahkill was well received by music critics. In The Great Rock Discography, Martin C. Strong called the album "an admirable effort." and later at number 36 in their top 100 best albums of the 1990s list. Jim DeRogatis listed Jehovahkill as a key psychedelic rock album in his 1996 book Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Rock From the 1960s to the 1990s. In 2006, NME ranked Jehovahkill at number 95 in their list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever!" In a 2017 list for The Quietus, Britt Daniel of the rock band Spoon included Jehovahkill in a list of his 13 favourite albums, calling it "the peak of his experimentation. It's also really great songwriting. It's a very, very kraut-influenced record. it's an expansive record. It was three sides. Not a full double album but it was three sides and on the fourth side you had an etching. He was always doing things like that. He was putting thought into it." Daniel regularly performed a cover version of "Up-Wards at 45°" at solo shows. Ben Graham of the website called the album a "masterpiece." ==Track listing==

2006 deluxe edition (second edition) ;Disc one • as per original edition ;Disc two ;Notes • Tracks 1, 2, 5, 10, 11 and 14 are from the Fear Loves This Place EP. Tracks 3, 4, 6–9, 12 and 13 are previously unreleased session outtakes. == Charts ==

Adapted from the album liner notes. ;Musicians • Julian Cope – vocals, wah-wah guitar, bass, ARP Quartet (disc two: 9) • Donald Ross Skinner – keyboards, bass, guitar (16), Jew's harp (disc two: 9), Omnichord (disc two: 2), guitar solo (disc two: 12), bass piano (disc two: 3) • Mark "Rooster" Cosby – drums, saxophone, guitar solo (6, 9, 10 / disc two: 6, 11), glockenspiel (disc two: 1, 7, 13) • Hugoth Nicolson – analog synthesizer • Tom Nicolson – harmonica (4) • Shaun Harvey – Harveytron (6, 7 / disc two: 14), samples (disc two: 14) • Anthony "Doggen" Foster – guitar (7) • Fiorella Terenzi – acoustic astronomy (10 / disc two: 13) • Joss Cope – vocals (disc two: 2) ;Technical • Donald Ross Skinner – production • Julian Cope – production, mastering (deluxe edition), liner notes (deluxe edition) • Hugoth Nicolson – recording, mixing • Paul Corkett – recording, mixing • Shaun Harvey – recording, mixing • Santy – assistant • Robo – assistant • Rob Carter – design, artwork • James Dowdall – executive producer • Chris Olley – editing, tape transfer (disc two) • Shawn Joseph – mastering (deluxe edition) • Holy McGrail – artwork (deluxe edition) • Mick Houghton – liner notes, executive producer (deluxe edition) == References ==