23

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2020-05-23

Label: Courier

WHY 23? I first became aware of ‘23’ in the early 90’s from my then manager, Daveid Phillips, we bonded over a love of William Burroughs and the darker side of culture. Burroughs was obsessed with 23. While living in Tangiers, he met a Captain Clark who ran a ferry between Spain and Morocco. One day, Clark told Burroughs that he had been doing the route for 23 years without incident. Later that day, the ferry sank, killing the captain. While Burroughs was thinking about the incident, a radio bulletin announced the crash of a Flight 23 on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark. The events prompted an obsession which saw Burroughs record every occurrence of the number 23 for the rest of his life. From this grew the idea that you take a random number - 23 in this case and extrapolate any kind of meaning or prophecy. Aleister Crowley, KLF and most importantly to me Genesis P Orridge were all 23 fanatics.

So the idea for 23 as a piece: 23 ideas in 23 minutes came from trying to reduce a tune to it’s core stripping away structure and arrangement to deliver a raw emotional hit. Within the work I used the 23 as a vocal but also grouping beats and rhythms into factors and derivatives of 23 or 2 and 3.