CURRENT 93 & HÖH: ISLAND

This collaboration between Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and David Tibet largely boils down to synthpop and dream pop- influenced tunes by Hilmarsson, with David Tibet incanting his eldritch lyrics over them and various guests from the Current 93 stable or Hilmarsson's own musical connections stepping in here and there to back things up.

The CD version of this album has five additional tracks which aren't on the LP, one of which has a cameo from Björk, but these are best considered as being a sort of comical encore rather than part of the main event; whilst the 8 LP tracks focus on a particularly gloomy atmosphere, the bonus tracks are all over the place, with an overlong revision of the Crowleymass single leading off the pack. This was a goof-off single which Hilmarsson and Tibet had put out back in the 1980s, and is best treated like the novelty track it is. The other standout among the bonus tracks is The Fall of Christopher Robin, which is one of the last gasps of Tibet's ongoing project to recast British childhood classic characters in a spooky context.

The main body of the tracks, though, largely represent an interesting recontextualisation of Tibet's work. Tibet had, by this point, revealed himself to be a highly gifted lyricist, and reframing older pieces and pieces which would later be explored further on other works (like As The World Disappears or Thunder Perfect Mind) in this sort of dream pop context is an intriguing experiment. I would say three and a half stars for the album if we are judging solely on the LP tracks, but knock half a star off if you want the CD bonus tracks considered too.