The perfect stocking filler for situationist pop art dads and mums, the BFI Blu-ray and DVD release of ‘23 Seconds to Eternity’ gathers together the work of subversive music pranksters Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond through their various guises, namely The JAMs, The KLF and The Timelords.

Formed in 1987, Cauty and Drummond’s The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu aka The JAMs deployed the then new cheap sampling technology to create trancey tunes with the KLF, scoring a number of hits in the process. Their 1990’s ‘Chill Out’ album was a key ambient house record.

The duo’s more memorable stunts included collaborating with grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror at The 1992 BRIT awards (Drummond’s wish to drench the audience in pig’s blood was nixed by Noise Terror), and burning a million pounds on a Scottish island. Austrian band Edelweiss, heeding the advice in Cauty and Drummond’s book ‘The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)’, went on to sell five million copies of their single ‘Bring Me Edelweiss’.

The collection features videos for KLF bangers ‘3 AM Eternal’, ‘Last Train to Transcentral’ and ‘Justified and Ancient’, the latter which featured an unlikely appearance from country queen Tammy Wynette, who reportedly had no idea what was going on, as well as The JAMs’ ‘It’s Grim Up North’ and The Timelords’ ‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’.

Also included in the package are 1989’s ambient road movie ‘The White Room’ with a new soundtrack, ‘The Rites of Mu’, a folk horror-style short charting the Summer Solstice event organised by the KLF on the island of Jura in 1991, replete with narration by Martin Sheen reprising his disoriented growl from ‘Apocalypse Now’, and ‘Krash’ in which the duo trash The Timelord’s motor mascot Ford Timelord.

23 Seconds to Eternity is out on dual format BFI DVD and Blu-ray now.

David Willoughby

Follow David on Twitter @DWill_Crackfilm