Listen to the record

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In 1990, The KLF released Chill Out, an ambient album that plays like a nocturnal road trip across the American South. You hear trains, lost radio stations, voices, pedal steel, electronic washes, road noise. The record feels like it’s rolling somewhere between Texas and Louisiana, America sliding past the window. The neat twist is that this American road trip was made in London. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty built the route from Trancentral, their basement studio, stitching together samples, atmospheres, musical fragments and travel sounds until a whole landscape materialized. Handy, really: sometimes a country fits into an English cellar and a few tape reels. That’s why Chill Out is still cult. It doesn’t tell a tidy story with neat verses; it seats you in a ghost car, kills the lights, lets the radio stations speak for themselves, and leaves you to choose the destination. Close your eyes and cross a country that might exist only in the imagination of two very inspired Englishmen. Direct access: Work: Chill Out Artist: The KLF Country / Year: United Kingdom, 1990 Listen to the album via the link in bio. Credits: Music: The KLF, Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty Images: The KLF / KLF Communications / Trancentral archives / D.R.