23 Skidoo

Early associates of Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle within Britain’s experimental and industrial milieu, 23 Skidoo explored an improvisatory blend of ethnic percussion and post-punk rhythms across the limited recordings they issued in the opening years of the 1980s. The band took its name from a 1920s colloquialism that first surfaced in the writings of Aleister Crowley; it coalesced in London around siblings Alex and Johnny Turnbull—both martial-arts practitioners—and Fritz Catlin, also known as Fritz Haamann. Drawing from Fela Kuti as well as the nascent hip-hop movement in New York, the trio issued its debut single, “Ethics,” in 1980. The follow-up was tracked at Cabaret Voltaire’s Western Works studio, where Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle contributed to the production.

The Fetish label—already home to Throbbing Gristle and Clock DVA—put out the 1982 mini-LP Seven Songs together with the Tearing Up the Plans EP. After bassist Sketch, who aligned with the group’s sensibility, supplanted the original rhythm section, the band proceeded to deliver The Culling Is Coming in 1983 and Urban Gamelan the next year. Their eclectic sources and intermittently transcendent textures bewildered reviewers and audiences alike, many of whom anticipated that every industrial act would match the volume and disorder of the then-emerging Test Dept. or Einstürzende Neubauten. Although the lineup dissolved in 1984, the Turnbulls, Catlin, and Sketch reconvened intermittently for further sessions throughout the decade and inaugurated their own Ronin imprint in 1989. While the 1990s yielded no new band material, the members supplied multiple remixes and created music for commercials on behalf of Nike, Wrangler, and Smirnoff. In 2000 the group finally returned with a self-titled album on Virgin.