LUCIFER OVER LONDON

With the title track featuring John Balance of Coil on backing vocals and Nick Saloman of the Bevis Frond providing an opening rendition of the intro to Black Sabbath's Paranoia, you know that this EP is going to be something special. With a bit more of a psychedelic rock influence than typical for the band of this era, the title track is a terrifying riot of end-of-the-world imagery, representing perhaps the most truly catastrophic vision arising from David Tibet's much- vaunted "apocalyptic folk" sound.

Sad Go Round is a more typical Current 93 track for this era, whilst the 13 minute track on the second side gives us a spoken word meditation set against an industrial sound collage which gives way into more gorgeous neofolk playing. The EP is short but sweet and definitely worth a listen; then again, those after bang for their buck should be aware that the entire EP, along with the similarly excellent Tamlin EP from the same year and the studio tracks from 1990's Looney Runes release are compiled on the Six Six Six: SickSickSick compilation.

Lucifer Over London EP

The beauty of David Tibet's phenomenal CURRENT 93 is that no musical styles no matter howe outlandish and unthinkable were all fair game. After releasing a number of industrial dark ambient albums in the 1980s, Tibet began to add more neofolk to his repertoire towards the end of the decade until it became the dominant feature of his works but he still found the most twisted and creative ways to express it leaving behind some of the most one-of-kind musical releases of all time who continues well into the 21st century with a tally of well over 50 albums and 25 EPs to his credit.

While he has been prolific in the full album department he also released a number of EPs with a smattering coming out in the 1990s, one of his most creative and frenzied era of his career. LUCIFER OVER LONDON emerged in 1984 with three tracks that added up to 27 minutes plus. The title track which is technically divided into two parts despite appearing as a single near 8-minute track was inspired by the short story "The Tower Of Moab" by Leslie Allin Lewis although the music itself finds an interesting use for Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" Coil's John Balance taking the role of background singer while Tibet himself narrates in spoken word prose. The track also features multi-instrumentalist Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond tackling many of the sounds.

"Sad Go Round" on the other hand was a Groundhogs song from its 1974 "Solid" album featuring the same techniques and spoken narration which dominates the entire EP actually. Half the EP is dedicated to the lengthy "The Seven Seals Are Revealed at the End of Time as Seven Bows: The Bloodbow, the Pissbow, the Painbow, the Faminebow, the Deathbow, the Angerbow, the Hohohobow" which was written as a sequel to Coil's introduction on the "Horse Rotovator" album and reverts back to CURRENT 93's dark ambient days only fortified with spoken word poetic prose that is dedicated to the should of Tibet's cat Mao who had crossed over but never forgotten.

In many ways this is a collaborative effort of John Balance, Nick Saloman and Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton who contributes guitars, sound effects as well as sitting in the mixing engineer's seat. Existing somewhere between actual music and poetic recital this is a compelling little slice of the avant-garde on par with many of the most ethereal and bizarre CURRENT 93 offerings of the first two decades of its career. While i usually detest spoken word dialogue in conjunct with musical backing, David Tibet demonstrates exactly how to do it right with LUCIFER OVER LONDON as his attention to the poetic phrasing perfectly aligns with the musical backing. No wonder he's considered a prolific genius. He just masters so many unorthodox ways with such a finesse and elegant delivery that few others can achieve.