This year began with good news: the KLF, the duo formed in 1987 by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, and also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, were returning after a 25-year hiatus. The joy was short-lived. News of the comeback centred on a mediocre YouTube collage featuring the duo’s previous videos, which turned out to be something someone had compiled for a 2015 book talk. Drummond himself rained on the whole parade, saying: “Jimmy and I have always remained very close but we have no plans to reform the KLF or exploit our back catalogue in any way.”

His quote, it turns out, was a feat of semantic nuance. Within 24 hours, a photograph of a chanced-upon bill poster appeared on social media, confirming that the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (not the KLF) were working on new material (rather than exploiting their back catalogue), and that it would be unveiled on 23 August.

The poster was spotted by a journalist who, the Quietus website noted, also happened to be Drummond’s manager. Official confirmation came soon after, with a tweet from Cauty.

The Information is @K2PLANTHIRE — Jimmy Cauty (@jamescauty) January 5, 2017

Those suffering from renaissance fatigue may ask why the world needs another early-90s band staging a return, but it’s not just that there had never been a band like the KLF. It’s that, in the 25 years since their disappearance, nobody else has come up with anything that matches the duo’s extraordinary career.

Over the course of just five years, they pioneered sampling with two albums (as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu), released seminal rave and ambient house albums as the KLF, launched a spinoff girl-band called Disco 2000, scored an international hit as the Timelords, wrote a book, made a crop circle, issued various stand-alone singles, compiled two compilation albums, shot a film (and composed its soundtrack) and recorded an unreleased thrash-metal album. They also found time to dress up as giant ice-creams and in robes and horns. They were unique, even in an era when eccentricity was more valued than it is now.

The KLF were self-managed and owned their own label, KLF Communications. It meant they could indulge in the flights of fancy that conventional managers or labels might have vetoed. For example, in 1991, when the band’s “Stadium House” trilogy of What Time Is Love?, Last Train to Trancentral and 3am Eternal were worldwide chart hits, the band swerved the usual conventions of a sanitised press showcase. They invited the world’s media to a Scottish island where passports were confiscated, participants were dressed in billowing yellow robes and the event climaxed with the explosion of a 60ft wicker man.

KFL – American Whate Time Is Love?

Were the band sometimes taking the piss? Absolutely, and it looked and sounded spectacular. When the time came to rework What Time Is Love? for the US market, their behaviour bordered on trolling: America: What Time Is Love? was a nine-minute, stadium house, techno-metal extravaganza featuring Glenn Hughes, once of Deep Purple. The first 90 seconds explained how, 1,000 years previously, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu had discovered America, 500 years before Columbus. (The NME decided Single of the Week would not suffice, and declared the song Single of the Millennium.) After being asked to contribute a track to a compilation album organised by CND they delivered What Time Was Love? an explosion, followed by 99 seconds of post-nuclear rumbling.

Even the band’s self-destruction was extraordinary. At the 1992 Brits (where they sent a motorcycle courier on to the stage to collect their Best British Group award), the KLF performed a thrash-metal version of 3am Eternal, fired blanks into the audience from a machine gun and closed with the declaration: “Ladies and gentlemen, the KLF have now left the music business.” They then dumped a dead sheep bearing the message, “I died for you – bon appetit,” at one of the aftershow parties. (Piers Morgan wrote, huffily, that the Brits proved the KLF were “pop’s biggest wallies”.) Three months later, they formally announced their demise via a back-page ad in the NME.

Because they owned their own music, their farewell was more final than most – their entire back catalogue was immediately deleted and remains commercially unavailable – but the following years saw further activity. In 1993, they re-emerged as the K Foundation, recorded a mashup of Que Sera Sera and Happy Xmas (War is Over) with the Red Army Choir, and sabotaged that year’s Turner prize with the K Foundation award, in which they gave £40,000 (double the Turner prize money) to the Turner winner, Rachel Whiteread, for being the “worst artist of the year”. In 1994, they filmed themselves burning £1m on the Scottish island of Jura; three years later, they rebranded as 2K for a one-off 23-minute performance at the Barbican in London.

All of which does rather suggest that, were the KLF to return in 2017, they might choose to do so with something a little more exciting than a YouTube upload. The duo have remained busy, but individually: Cauty is currently touring a Banksy-goes-Airfix art installation called The Aftermath Dislocation Principle, while Drummond has delivered a steady, super-stylised stream of books, events and even his own brand of paint.

Last year closed with Drummond discussing the legacy of punk. Punk, most would argue, is a cautionary tale of how some explosive musical moments, however exciting, should probably be left in the past. On the other hand, Bradley Walsh was the biggest-selling new British artist of last year and Rag’n’Bone Man is being touted as the saviour of this year. Yes, 2017 needs the KLF. And if not the KLF, at the very least a KLF.