Karma Sutra - The Daydreams Of A Production Line Worker

A long-overlooked gem from the UK’s anarcho-punk underground, The Daydreams of a Production Line Worker by Karma Sutra finally gets the reissue it deserves. Originally released in 1987 on the band’s own Paradoxical Records, this singular album stands as one of the most ambitious and conceptually rich statements to emerge from the scene—an unclassifiable fusion of political urgency, post-punk experimentation, and Situationist philosophy.

Formed in the early 1980s, Karma Sutra had spent years building their sound through demos and appearances on Mortarhate compilations. By the time they entered Sheffield’s Vibrasound Studio to record this album—co-produced by Spon of UK Decay—the band had evolved beyond the straight-ahead anarcho blueprint, weaving in moody textures, layered instrumentation, and a heightened sense of sonic ambition. The result is a deeply atmospheric and intellectually charged record that shares more in common with the brooding introspection of The Mob or early Chumbawamba than it does with typical punk fare.

The Daydreams of a Production Line Worker is a concept album in the truest sense—political without dogma, abstract yet deeply grounded. Its lyrics explore themes of class, gender, cultural conditioning, and resistance, all wrapped in a biting critique of capitalist society. The music matches that weight, shifting between stark, tense passages and dense, emotionally driven arrangements that feel as urgent now as they did upon release.

This reissue from Sealed Records restores the album’s original vision, including a faithful reproduction of the 28-page booklet that accompanied the initial pressing—a critical part of the experience that delves deeper into the band’s radical politics and philosophy of everyday revolution.

Uncompromising, thoughtful, and hauntingly prescient, The Daydreams of a Production Line Worker is a true outlier in the punk canon—complex, courageous, and essential.

Karma Sutra – The Daydreams of a Production Line Worker
Label: Sealed Records | Format: Vinyl LP (Reissue with 28-Page Booklet)