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23 Skidoo \ Seven Songs [LTM 2528]

An expanded remaster of the seminal mini-album Seven Songs by 23 Skidoo, whose unique industrial ethno-funk hybrid topped the British indie charts in 1982.

As well as the nine original tracks, the album has now been expanded to include all material from Fetish label EPs The Gospel Comes to New Guinea and Tearing Up the Plans. Artwork by Neville Brody. The CD booklet features a detailed band biography and archive Skidoo images.

The double vinyl edition of Seven Songs is pressed on clear vinyl and packaged in a gatefold sleeve and includes a digital copy (MP3). Bonus tracks on the second disc include their John Peel radio session from September 1981, consisting of four tracks not recorded or released elsewhere, and the Gospel... EP.

CD tracklist:

1. Kundalini
2. Vegas El Bandito
3. Mary's Operation
4. Lock Groove
5. New Testament
6. IY
7. Porno Base
8. Quiet Pillage
9. Untitled
10. Last Words (7" version)
11. The Gospel Comes to New Guinea
12. Tearing Up the Plans (Pt. 1)
13. Tearing Up the Plans (Pt. 2)
14. Just Like Everybody
15. Gregouka

2xLP tracklist:

A1. Kundalini
A2. Vegas El Bandito
A3. Mary's Operation
A4. Lock Groove
A5. New Testament
B1. IY
B2. Porno Base
B3. Quiet Pillage
B4. Untitled
C1. The Gospel Comes to New Guinea
C2. Last Words (12" version)
D1. Macaw Gungah (Peel Session)
D2. View From Here (Peel Session)
D3. Four Note Bass (Peel session)
D4. Retain Control (Peel session)

Available on CD, double vinyl and digital (MP3 or FLAC). Vinyl is currently out of stock. To order please first select correct shipping option (UK, Europe, Rest of World) and then click on Add To Cart button below cover image. Digital copies are delivered to customers via link sent by email.

Seven Songs
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Reviews:

"Foundational. Brilliant. 23 Skidoo became part of the early 80s 'industrial' underground scene, using loops, samples and some amazing drumming. Their use of percussion really stood out, with weird and offbeat patterns. The digital version of the album is great, with extra tracks that weren't on the original vinyl release, like The Gospel Comes to New Guinea. Seven Songs is a very important record for me. Without 23 Skidoo and Cabaret Voltaire there would be no Meat Beat Manifesto"(Jack Dangers, Electronic Sound, 12/2023)

"Electrifying post-punk for the mind and body. The opening Kundalini, which sounds like Throbbing Gristle having a bash at early '70s Miles Davis, is dislocated dance at its best; and things get more funked up still on Vegas El Bandito. Just as you start to imagine The Pop Group in military fatigues, Skidoo hit the impressionist button with a series of sample-heavy soundscapes, such as the howling sonic hollow of Porno Base, a disturbing, Hitchcockian drills-and-bells drone piece set to a Mary Whitehouse-like 'nanny' railing against pop as a degenerate force. Seven bonus cuts flesh out the original mini-album magnificently. Four stars" (Mojo, 01/2009)

"The shockingly loud burst of machine feedback which introduces Kundalini is still startling a quarter of a century on, and its ensuing throb of congas, fuzz violin and urgent chanting represents a pinnacle of voodoo funk-noir. From this extraordinary opening track Skidoo veer ambitiously between brittle Miles-style funk, tape loop experimentation, found-sound reportage and Martin Denny-inspired exotica. LTM's welcome reissue is bundled with The Gospel Comes to New Guinea, an obsessive, ocean-deep ten minute rhythm workout, and the baffling, brilliant EP Tearing Up The Plans" (The Wire, 01/2009)

"One of the most exciting records I've heard since Unknown Pleasures. A variably energetic and stimulating addition to that collection of perceptions, hallucinations and associations brought into play by Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and A Certain Ratio. It tears away deceptive dramatic or sentimental gloss and mixes a neutral type of documentary candour with thrilling regenerative abstraction. It's candid, obstinate, intimate, incomplete, uncommon... rather solitary. Very appropriate. Intoxicating" (NME (Paul Morley), 02/1982)

"23 Skidoo conceived of funk as a sinister energy, and Seven Songs still sounds blood-curdlingly intense" (Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up, 2005)

"Their sinister ethno-funk industrial-dub blueprint remains an essential listen and their suspicion of commercial success seems both quaint and prophetic. Since 1979 they have wed ancient Eastern and African interests to a restlessly modern tribal angst. The group took the opportunity to confound expectations whenever possible and created an uncompromising and seminal musical identity: check the extent of their imitators. In the process, 23 Skidoo illustrated how to retain relevance and integrity when threatened by hazardously close brushes with success in the music biz. Never a dance band, their music has always resembled the neo-primitive urgings of a gang of aesthetes wandering a post-apocalyptic urban desert. Once again, LTM's fabulous liner notes would be worth the price of this set even if the discs were blank" (Brainwashed, 11/2008)

"Classic - sits in a wild area between Cabaret Voltaire and The Pop Group' (Record Collector, 01/2009)

"23 Skidoo exist to remind us that integrity and courage are more important than money' (Metro, 03/2012)

"Skidoo's preserve was a spooked, pseudo-primitive dance music, venturing with machete drawn into the murky jungle betwixt gloom and groove. Seldom imitated, it still sounds starkly original. 9 out of 10" (Uncut, 04/2012)

"Remastered, Seven Songs is more essential than ever' (Mojo, 07/2012)

"Pivotal album. A blend of rhythm, clang, effects, snake-like bass and compelling grooves twenty years ahead of its time" (Record Collector, 06/2012)

"I might have heard Seven Songs at the same time I heard PiL's Metal Box and their impact on me was almost Biblical. It is the most tripped-out mind assault, incredibly well-produced, funky as hell, madly experimental, with this dystopian ambience that runs all the way through it. It's as fresh and uncategorisable now as the day it was made" (Mojo, 11/2015)