In 1990, English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith spent six months in Marseille, France, working with Que d'la Gueule, a group of young unemployed rock musicians.

[1][2] He composed Helter Skelter for them to perform, a rock opera for two sopranos, one contralto and a large electric ensemble.

The opera was recorded in February 1992 by Christian Noêl at Studio Cactus in Marseille, and later mixed in July 1992 by Benedykt Grodon, Fred Frith and Jean-Marc Montera at Sound Fabrik in Munich using additional material taken from concert performances.

[3] In his book Plunderphonics, 'pataphysics & pop mechanics: an introduction to musique actuelle, Andrew Jones said that Que d'la Gueule "show themselves to be a powerful ensemble bristling with talent and volatile contradictions", and that in Helter Skelter they "sketch a broad canvas of despair and hope, an urban maelstrom with moments of pure beauty peering through the shards of electroacoustic reality.

"[2] Jones added that "Listening to [the opera] is like a ride on a subway and a stroll through a bustling market while listening to music on a walkman: striated fragments upon fragments leak through, from Eastern European jigs and dances …, samples of street life, radio broadcasts, plaintive chords arising from the horns, a soprano singer launching into Catalani's La Romance, all layered in an astonishing dense, chaotic mix and anchored by two airtight drummers.