| REVIEWS
Musique
Machine
Just
over two years after the release of Black ships ate
the sky, Current 93 have reformed their line up and
present here four new tracks with a pared down four
piece of David Tibets vocals, Keyboards of Baby Dee,
Whistling from Rob Sands and the mix and extra audio
from Andrew Liles.
The sound is stark and minimal compared to their recent
live shows which at times have bordered full-on prog-metal.
In fact it’s even more minimal than the recent
Black ships opus and reminds one of their classic
statement of muted melancholy Soft Black Stars. I
looked to the Southside of the door has Tibets voice
doubled against Baby Dee’s simple repetitive
piano melodies. The lyrics are classic Tibet featuring
all of his staple motifs of resurrection, Catholicism,
cats, apocalypse, Ect. Liles twists and warps Tibets
voice and it’s occasionally joined by yelping
little high pitched Tibet voices. Apart from this
and a few minimal studio tricks the track maintains
it’s stately beauty throughout.
She took us to the places where the sun sets is a
far more bizarre encounter than the first. The piano
melodies have a drama and urgency about them and after
an intro of distant clocks ticking Tibets voice lurches
shrouded in a horrific overdrive distortion that pannes
and doubles his apocalyptic rant across Baby Dee’s
almost mortified piano. Seriously scary stuff from
the man who loves his noddy.
The Nylon Lion Attacks as Kingdom uses a similar but
less aggressive distortion on Tibets voice and the
piano has less doom about it. Some light keyboards
are present along with a more complex mix of piano
and voice that causes the melodies to swirl as if
falling slowly into the maelstrom.
Suddenly the living are dying is a short revisiting
of the melodies of the first track as if bringing
us full circle. It ends with a little sound collage
of horses hooves, screeching metallic drone and static
noise from Liles.
Startling EP from the band who judging by the live
shows seemed to be heading in less idiosyncratic direction.
Not the case though, they have produced a frighteningly
intense melancholic works that seems to combine the
best of many different C93 eras. The forthcoming album
is highly anticipated.
Duncan Simpson
Judas
Kiss
Written by Lee Powell
Announcing the arrival of the next chapter in the
ever-evolving cycle of life that Current 93 progress
along are the delicate and immediately captivating
keys of ‘I Looked Southside Of The Door’,
the opening track to their much anticipated ‘Birth
Canal Blues’ EP. After drawing a close to the
majestic ‘Black Ships Ate The Sky’, this
EP marks the introduction of what could be the defining
moment in C93’s career, the forthcoming ‘Aleph
At Hallucinatory Mountain’ album. Acting as
a pre-echo, or a prequel if you will, to this album,
‘Birth Canal Blues’ contains four tracks
(or even one track in four segments), clocking in
at round 19 minutes, which according to the Durtro
website, won’t appear in this form on ‘Aleph…’
Arriving so quickly after ‘Black Ships…’,
it would appear that Tibet is in full creative swing,
and this EP echoes this sentiment perfectly, as it
delivers the Current 93 that we have all come to know
and love, but with a sound and atmosphere that has
been refined and has progressed somewhat. Reflecting
the influences, ideas and concepts that shape Tibet’s
world, the band’s sound, whilst still being
recognisable as Current 93, is somewhat different
in parts from what they have produced previously,
and as such it delivers a wonderfully diverse and
compelling exploration into this newest chapter of
one of today’s most innovative, influential
and talented groups.
Opening with ‘I Looked Southside Of The Door’,
you can’t help but be moved by the hauntingly
beautiful keys that introduce this track. They have
a wonderful simplicity but touch the very soul of
the listener with their emotionally filled sentiment
and the atmosphere that it produces. You almost feel
like the music alone makes this as near perfect as
it needs to be. However, once this is accompanied
by Tibet’s own devilishly unique vocals that
are delivered with a heartwarmingly emotive passion,
the intensity of the track’s sound increases
tenfold. This divine coupling of vocals and keys is
occasionally joined by the slightest interjection
of subtle yet still hugely noticeable washes of noise,
occasional sounds and spectral reverberations of samples
that paste a fragile layer to the track’s sound
and presentation.
As an introduction to not only a new cycle of Current
93’s work but also newly recorded material from
this seminal group, it’s about as perfect as
it could be, and is an absolute joy to behold time
and time again. Inviting comparisons to the aesthetic
and overall sound that C93 produced on their wondrous
‘Soft Black Stars’ album, ‘I Looked…’
demonstrates immensely well why Tibet is so revered
by the legions of fans that adore his recordings and
the music of Current 93. You couldn’t ask for
a better introductory track for ‘Birth Canal
Blues’, although it sets the bar unfeasibly
high for the remainder of the EP to keep up with.
Yet somehow, Tibet and co. still manage to outshine
this remarkable track with the remaining three pieces
that follow.
‘She Took Us To The Places Where The Sun Sets’,
is the second track on the EP and perhaps the most
diverse and non-conformist in a Current 93 sense,
not that Current’s work is conformist in any
way, it’s just that it differs somewhat from
what you may have been expecting, and shows a new
side and slightly differing sound to Tibet’s
work. With passionately stark piano accompaniment
and what sounds like the distorted chimes of bells,
you’re introduced to an overtly dark presence
that slowly creeps forth, yet this is highly eclipsed
by the torrent of guttural vocals that Tibet unleashes.
Harsh, distorted and full of rage, it has a venomous
vigour and unsettling malevolence that’s breathtaking.
These vocals with their piano accompaniment produce
a harrowing conflicting intensity that carries you
along in silent awe. It’s difficult to try and
explain exactly what Tibet has done here, but it seems
like his friendships with the likes of Sunn 0))),
Skitliv and Om have helped him formulate a more doomy,
almost black metal vocal delivery that he executes
amazingly well.
Even as I type this, I know my description of this
track doesn’t sound quite right or give justice
to what Tibet has achieved with it, but it really
does shoot down like a bolt from the blue, and whilst
it will startle many C93 fans, it will no doubt impress
equal if not higher numbers.
If this is a new direction that Tibet is fusing into
‘Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain’, then
this album shows tremendous promise already, with
the wonderfully differing sound that it will contain.
And judging from the explosion of harsh noise that
draws a close to this EP, as well as the distorted
vocals that accompany the starkly beautiful piano
of its third track, ‘The Nylon Lion Attacks
As Kingdom’, this certainly looks to be the
case.
Drawing a close to the proceedings is the sublime
‘Suddenly The Living Are Dying’, which
mirrors somewhat the structure of the EP’s opener,
in that it primarily consists of Tibet’s delicately
delivered vocals sung over a bittersweet piano musical
backing that makes your eyes swell and a lump rise
in your throat. It truly is beautiful, and a triumphant
ending to this all too brief glimpse of what we can
expect in the near future.
Current 93 (who on this occasion are Tibet, Baby Dee
and Andrew Liles) are without doubt my favourite band
out there, and whilst not every facet of their work
is untouchable by any stretch of the imagination,
‘Birth Canal Blues’ perfectly demonstrates
why I have such a passionate love for their music.
It touches me, stirs my emotions and keeps me transfixed
throughout. Even with multiple listens, it only sounds
better and seems to mature with each play. If their
forthcoming album only has a quarter of the charm,
emotion and presence of this EP, then it’s guaranteed
to be a truly phenomenal album and perhaps the high
point of Current 93’s career so far.
God Bless them all. Each and every one of them.
Brainwashed
Written by Jonathan Dean
Sunday, 29 June 2008
As the world of Current 93 is in the midst of rumblings
announcing the forthcoming album Anok Pe: Aleph at
Hallucinatory Mountain, this new CDEP was released
at recent shows, both a stopgap and a preview of future
iterations. The good news for those who weren't bowled
over by Black Ships Ate the Sky is that Birth Canal
Blues is quite different indeed, and represents a
new direction for David Tibet and company.
One of the most immediately noticeable changes is
the stripped back personnel that comprises Current
93 for this release. Instead of the huge and unwieldy
collective of musicians used on Black Ships, this
EP recalls Soft Black Stars or Sleep Has His House
in its limited instrumental palette and group; this
time out it's only Baby Dee on keyboards, Tibet on
vocals and Andrew Liles inhabiting the usual Steven
Stapleton role, producing and mixing. Hearing someone
other than Maja Elliott tickling the ivories for Current
93 is an interesting change: Baby Dee's style is less
impressionistic, more traditionally melodic, tracing
beautifully symmetrical piano figures informed by
popular music or church playing. In some sense this
is appropriate, as Tibet's lyrics become increasingly
focused upon Biblical prophecy. In another sense,
it seems utterly at odds with the apocalyptic visions
being related, creating an unorthodox hybrid of gentle
pop and ferocious, unhinged teleological visions.
Andrew Liles' production contributes to this unorthodox
quality, splitting Tibet's vocals between the left
and right channels, and placing them slightly out
of sync for the first track, "I Looked to the
South Side of the Door." The lyrics are typical
for Current 93, and yet longtime fans will notice
a certain evolution in Tibet's text. Gone are the
extremely personal confessions, replaced instead by
vaguer and more cryptic prophetic visions: "Adam
stands on ascetic mountain/The woman's face is full
of stars/And in the words of The Book/And with the
lips of The Book/And the trumpet and the seal/And
the candlestick that lights up your bed with seeds
and flowers/And the lion on your rug that's roaring
like a lamb/On the rack and on it's back/I call the
martyrs on wheels/To this piss-poor mess/With the
blood spreading like flies/Under the table and the
gable breathing like curtains of eyes/That shift uneasily."
Tibet's vocals are punctuated with mimetic sound sculptures,
the sound of trains arriving and animal noises.
"She Took Us to the Places Where the Sun Sets"
is something else entirely, with a dramatic multitracked
piano part that forms the bed for Tibet's vocals,
which are mutated to sound like the monstrously distorted,
satanic, wintry howls of a Nordic black metal vocalist,
affected with delay that bounces between the stereo
channels. As such, it is pretty much impossible to
hear what Tibet is saying, but no matter, as the track
is deadly and effective, chilling the bone like precious
little Current 93 music in recent memory. When, at
the very end of the track, Tibet screams quite audibly:
"I will murder you!" I felt like I was back
in the days of Dogs Blood Rising or Imperium, when
Current 93 was unproblematically a gothic/industrial
project, still quite capable of scaring the shit out
of me. "The Nylon Lion Attacks as Kingdom"
uses another outré vocal distortion, one which
makes Tibet's vocals sound more tortured and morbid
than usual.
"Suddenly the Living Are Dying" ends the
EP on a lighter note, reminiscent of something from
Soft Black Stars, but with a bit more psychedelic
fuckery, especially as the track fades out into piercing
crescendos of atonal electronic drone, and the apocalyptic
galloping of horse hooves, climaxing in an explosion
of Merzbow-esque noise. The generic appellation of
"apocalyptic folk" for the music of Current
93 has rarely seemed more appropriate than here.
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