I'm pretty sure this industrial publication from England doesn't need any introduction. I just got a copy of it's latest issue (summer/ fall 2001) and here are my brief impressions of it. To be short, I like the mag.
The issue contains interviews with VON THRONSTAHL, THE DAYS OF TRUMPET CALL, MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE, B'NAI BRITH, REMANENCE and MIDDLE PILLAR RECORDS. There is also a non-musical interview with a female Submissive. One of contributors did a review of DER BLUTHARSCH's gig in London. Article "Death of the West" tries to dig relations of industrial music and Fascism. And finally this issue has a report from the Thailand Vegetarian festival. Don't forget about more than 100 reviews! So, JK #7 has enough stuff to offer.
Design and layout of the magazine is it's weakest point. I say nothing if I say "I don't like it". It looks like the people behind the publication know shit about design, layout and publishing in general. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole publication was made in MS Word. As I said already the layout of the magazine is extremely primitive, most of it's pictures are taken from Internet and they have very bad quality... those jagged pixels piss me off. The only thing I personally enjoyed about design of the publication is the original cover. What a great idea to use transparent film! Thank god, contents of the magazine are much better than JK's look. So, let's talk about them.
In general I like most of the materials from JK #7. The interviews are intelligent and interesting, articles are informative and reviews are helpful. Personally I have enjoyed great interview with amazing neoclassical band REMANENCE, short but funny review of DB gig in London and chat with a female S&M addict... ha-ha, she like to be pissed on. VON THRONSTAHL/ THE DAYS OF TRUMPET CALL interviews are OK, but I haven't found anything new for myself - we already had articles about the bands in Stigmata. "Death of the West" article tries to investigate roots and connections of contemporary industrial music and Fascism. Well, I think this topic is too complicated for such short (3 A5 size pages!) feature.
Reviews. It seems the people behind JK have a chance to listen to almost every release from WSD, so it's one of few publication with such impressing amount of reviews from this distribution/ label. Good reason to get JK, don't you think? As a rule all reviews are well written, interesting and informative. In most cases I agree with JK's point of view on reviewed records... but it seems they have too much sympathy for stuff from Albin Julius &Co. Pro-European and -mmmm, let's call them that way - politically incorrect recordings have better chances to get positive review in JK...
If you think about buying a copy of JK for yourself here is the contact address:
P.O. Box 44, Gloucester, GL4 4YB, England.
E-mail: judaskiss@freezone.co.uk
Price (in pounds): UK - 2,50, Europe - 3, Rest of the World - 4.
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