CURRENT 93

The first EP of the 2000s by David Tibet's CURRENT 93 project finds him delivering another round of poetry with various field recordings, tape music and dark ambient music decorating the background. A 22-minute single track I HAVE A SPECIAL PLAN FOR THIS WORLD features Tibet narrating the poem of the same name by the author Thomas Ligotti who was most famous in the 1950s for his weird and gothic fiction short stories that tackled two of Tibet's favorite themes, namely pessimism and nihilism!

A sparsely decorated affair the EP features a return appearance of Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound and harkens back to CURRENT 93's post-industrial sounds of the early 80s which includes synthesized drones and random sounds from found objects. Only the most minimal use of acoustic guitar and piano can be heard and the EP has proven to be one of CURRENT 93's most beloved of his entire length list of shorter EP releases. This was specifically released as a one track CD on the Durtro label but the 12" vinyl version featured a B-side titled "Excerpts From Bungalow Tapes."

One of the closest things to the apocalyptic nightmare music that was displayed on Tibet's earliest albums such as "Nature Unveiled" and "Dogs Blood Rising," I HAVE A SPECIAL PLAN FOR THIS WORLD is indeed a bleak and depressive affair with clearly enunciated spoken word prose that leaves nothing to the imagination in exactly what he is uttering. The bursts of radio static, tape machine blips and bleeps and dark ambient droning really takes this to a whole new level of bleakness especially after releasing such brilliant and more uplifting albums in the 90s that focused on the catchy and melodic acoustic guitar strumming of neofolk.

Of course the most sinister sounds from this EP are from Tibet's poetic delivery itself with a cold and sterile detached procession through the darkest subject matter one could wish to experience in a poetry reading. While i've never really been a huge fan of spoken word vocals in a musical context i have to say that David Tibet delivers it all in such a thoughtful creative way that it's utterly irresistible but only if the darkest of subject matter attracts you for such things. Yet another excursion into some of the most psychotically delicious poetry sessions laid down to a recording, CURRENT 93 is the gift that keeps on giving!

The final chapter of the Inmost Light Trilogy, the 22 minute plus single track THE STARRES ARE MARCHING SADLY HOME (THEINMOSTLIGHTTHIRDANDFINAL), this apocalyptic grand finale proved to be the most experimental as well as the most stripped down with only ambient minimalism providing any musical backing and set to eerie loops and layered vocal effects that narrative a continues poetic prose by David Tibet with the guest vocal contributions of Andria Degens, Roxanne Stapleton and the even the legendary Shirley Collins leaving her traditional folk musical career behind fro a taste of the avant-garde.

Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton is back in the mixing engineer's seat and David Kenny offers some processed guitar sounds otherwise this is a swirling dark ambient excursion through some of the most most apocalyptic poetic recitals that one could ever hope to experience! The music itself is making to the abstruse musique concrète which utilizes recorded sounds as the source material and then processed through audio signals and tape music techniques that result in an otherworldly effect of sound collages and in the process creating some of the most alienating sound back possible. The Louis Wain painting on the cover art perfectly depicts the overall effect of this strange journey into the bowels of poetic prose hell.

More of a lyrical experience than a musical one per se, THE STARRES ARE MARCHING SADLY HOME in many ways provides a summary of the mood setting of the previous two installments of the trilogy with a recap of the thematic bleakness and abstruse esotericism that was all the rage in the post-industrial esoteric movement that swept the English underground by storm with CURRENT 93 emerging as one of the top acts to engage in it. A swirl box of ceaseless subtleties in the turbulent atmospheres finds the various vocal performances adding a new dimension to the overall feel of the EP with Collins' traditional singing a calming motherly lullaby thus offering a resolution to the nightmarish three installment set of some fo the 90s darkest forays into the world of experimental intersection of neofolk and electronic music.

Revolving around an adhesive label on the original packaging referring to the album as a Hallucinatory Patripassianist's Philosophy which apparently in Christian theology is an Eastern concept of modalism that God The Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are three different modes or emanations of one monadic God. A lyrical rotisserie of various themes of pain and death along with the overcoming of such through the light or inner soul is the primary theme of this esoteric and heady excursion through an apocalyptic folk based soundscape steeped with varying vocal narrations with a post-industrial mood setting. The album focuses on the usual neofolk acoustic guitar strumming of this chapter of CURRENT 93 but also heavy on droning, electronic experimentalism.

Graced with the same Shirley Collins inspired folk intimacy of previous releases only set to the world of eschatological esotericism and the mysticism of poets like William Blake, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES goes for the jugular with its bizarre post-industrial bleakness that seems to come into full fruition with the collaborative forces of Steve Stapleton and John Balance by his side. The album features lush lullaby type folk as heard on the traditional title track (which makes an augmented reprise at the end) as well as offering piano-based bleakness with TIbet's most sinister vocal narrations on "The Inmost Night." While mostly narrating his poetic prose in a most exaggerated spoken manner, on tracks like "This Carnival Is Dead And Gone" Tibet almost succeeds in a full-singing effect but offers his utterly distinct methodology of always sounding like he's speaking even when technically hitting the notes that would indeed qualify him as a singer!

The album's greatest strength is the varying soundscapes at hand with alternating folky passages mixing with bleaker electronic-based industrial bits that evoke an earlier age of CURRENT 93. Many tracks are nothing more than short little ditties whereas others such as "Twilight Twilight Nihil Nihil" capture a full apocalyptic industrial soundscape approach and eke out a sense of impending disaster for over eight minutes thus making the album feel like a seesaw ride of uplifting little folk pieces of innocence to full on climactic nightmares in musical form. Followed by the 9 1/2 "The Inmost Light Itself" which offers a continuation of the bleak detached and depressive subject matter only reverting back to the apocalyptic folk with not only Tibet's particularly whispered vocals but by a scattering of sound samples of children in the background. The album ends with Nick Cave offering vocal performances, first on the reprise of the short but sweet title track and followed by the closing "Patripassian" which finds cave in spoken word narration reading text from the Pensées of Blaise Pascal over a loop of English 16th century choral music.

Considered a fan favorite many are unaware that this album sits smack dab in the middle of a conceptual trilogy which is not surprising due to the fact Tibet's esoteric connections are more conceptual than on a musical footing that makes it all easy to connect. There is really no reason why any of t these three chapters cannot exist on their own and the listener will not diminish the experience one little bit if any of the EPs are simply glossed over. Overall a great apocalyptic dirge through the many musical forms of depression and bleakness that Tibet sought out with great fanfare. I absolutely adore these intersecting creative forces where the masterminds of CURRENT 93, Coil and Nurse With Wound bring the best of their worlds to one work table. A triumphant display of dark ambient and apocalyptic folk at its finest.

After releasing one CURRENT 93 album and three EPs in 1994, David Tibet followed in 1995 with no full-lengths and only one EP which is this strange 19-minute track titled WHERE THE LONG SHADOWS FALL (BEFORETHEINMOSTLIGHT). Once again Tibet is back to offer a muffled poet prose only this time over a looped sound bite sampled from "Domine Salvum Fac Pontificem Nostrum Leonem" to be found on Alessandro Moreschi's compendium The Last Castrato (Complete Vatican Recordings). While castratos were fairly common before 1861, Moreschi who was born in 1858 in Rome, Italy (where it was most common) emerged as one of the very last castrato and the only one who ever made solo recordings.

WHERE THE LONG SHADOWS FALL (BEFORETHEINMOSTLIGHT) was the first part of The Inmost Light Trilogy which was followed by the full album "All The Pretty Little Horses" and the one track EP "The Stars Are Marching Sadly Home." Once again Tibet is joined by Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton in the mixing chair and also contributing some bell sounds as well as Coils John Balance on vocals and lyrical writing. Also on board is guitarist / engineer David Kenny from the Aeolian String Ensemble and guitarist / bassist both of CURRENT 93 and Nature And Organization.

Like the 1994 EP "Lucifer Over London," WHERE THE LONG SHADOWS FALL (BEFORETHEINMOSTLIGHT) is a dark and creepy album that evokes CURRENT 93's earliest days as well as keeping you ponder the ethics of castrating pre-pubescent boys simply to pimp them out as opera singers in previous eras. While the entire track is basically a looped piece of Moreschi's famous recording recorded in the first years of the 20th century. The track offers a 17-second excerpt of "The Frolic" as a hidden track which finds a barrel audible John Balance narrated an improvised phrase.

This one is quite interesting on my levels. The castrato parts will surely evoke a historical reality many have heard about but probably never actually experienced while the creepy atmospheres and idiosyncratic poetic prose of Tibet's whispered and spoken lyrics will offer a continuity of not only The Inmost Trilogy but of Tibet's experimental neofolk approach in general that had usurped the dark collage like ambient and industrial soundscapes of his 80s releases. Overall i find this one to be a fascinating clash of varying ideas and a brilliant sampling job that offers Moreschi to shine again for a brief moment some 90 years after the original recording. Another example of Tibet's wild and unorthodox approach.

TAMLIN was the third EP released by David Tibet's CURRENT 93 project in 1994 and pretty much followed in the formula of "Lucifer In London" however this time without the collaborative effort of Coil's John Balance the two tracks that add up to about 17 minutes don't quite deliver the same impact as the previous superior offering.

Once again Tibet narrates in poetic prose with Nicholas Saloman sitting in on electric guitar and dulcimer with Michael Cashmore also of CURRENT 93 and Nature And Organization joining on acoustic guitar. Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound is back but only as the mixing engineer but the production is less compelling this time around.

The title track almost has a lullaby quality two it with a repetitive folky strumming session without all the bells and whistles of the previous EP. Likewise the subject matter isn't as compelling neither is the poetic delivery. While "Lucifer Over London" had a certain darkness to it, this one is more straight forward and almost campfire folk only with Tibet's dramatic and passionate enunciations.

"How The Great Satanic Glory" really doesn't deviate at all from the first track in stylistic approach except it adds a melodic guitar lead to the mix however the basic chord progressions of the acoustic guitar sound very similar. The EP was limited to 2000 numbered copies and related for Halloween 1994. It's seen both vinyl as well as CD releases. Personally i find this one to be quite inferior to "Lucifer In London" which was captivating on many levels. This gets the job done but it's a fairly uneventful slice of psychedelic neofolk that doesn't quite get my juices flowing.

The second EP from CURRENT 93 in 1994 was THE FIRE OF THE MIND deviated significantly from the poetry meets neofolk of "Lucifer Over London" which preceded and "Tamlin" which followed. This time around David Tibet conjured up a single 20-minute drone / dark ambient track that drifted along in slo-mo with subtle sound variations emerging behind a pulsating ambience and dark atmospheric backdrop.

Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton joins and offers guitars, bass, back vocals and obviously inspiration from his own projects as it sounds much more out of the NWW playbood than the folk oriented sounds that Tibet gravitated towards. David Kenny also joined in on bass and guitars but these sounds were processed and pretty much muffled in the mix of it all but guitar strums can be discerned through the murky haze.

There's really not much to this one as it's a monotonous continuous drone with subtle changes in oscillation patterns and swirly effects in the backing atmosphere. It's a dark and brooding affair with no vocals and no percussion but the steady pulsating tension provides the right rhythmic freakery to sustain it for 20 minutes. Overall this is a nice example of dark ambient in conjunct with a droning effect but not the kind of thing that i gravitate towards often as the variations are quite minimal. Great background music but not something you're going to put on everyday most likely. David Tibet ekes out a few verbal utterances at the very end in the same poetic prose as the two bookended EPs but it's for a few seconds.

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.

Tibet promotes the title as a mantra throughout the 11 pieces here, even though none is actually so named. In between these incantations reside all manner of apocalyptic poetry, sometimes resignedly, other times vitriolically recited, generally spoken more than sung as is his wont, set against a hypnotic semi acoustic backing, best illuminated by "The Policeman is Dead" and "Bright Dead Star". Tracks bleed into each other such that the first utterance of the enigmatic "Your Future Cartoon" directly references "A Thousand Witches" from seconds before. "The Bench and the Fetch" is another pinnacle with caressed guitar propelling an almost singing Tibet. If the musical dissonance of "The Postman is Singing's is jarring, its animal centered verses are among the most evocative presented.

I don't know if music can save us from losing that light collectively or individually, but CURRENT 93 certainly helps both illuminate and distract us to that end.

This album is a lot more related to the more experimental ambient works David Tibet makes in tandem to his neofolk, and in this case he is working with Thomas Ligotti, with him writing this manifesto.

I like to compare this record to The Caretaker's Everywhere At The End Of Time for a similar atmosphere, however EATEOT was a purely instrumental and gradual piece, simulating dementia on the brain, which slowly degrades the more the music goes on, from something lavish and peaceful, to practically nothing and painful. On the other hand, I Have a Special Plan For This World is filled with words and an already painful ambiance, and deals with paranoia, occultism, and generally messed up behavior from the protagonist(s) plan.

I feel like what does this EP justice is the delivery. It isn't sung or delivered with David's typical demeanor, but instead it is very cut and dry, monotone, and honestly scary. It is not even as if you are hearing some unknown stranger, or someone who is remotely sane, it feels like you are hearing the audio recordings of some malignant cult priest who is stripped away from all of their emotion.

Furthermore, this EP can really make you feel uncomfortable. Current 93's music is meant to be a bit more fearful in their musical deliveries, but works like All The Pretty Little Horsies, Sleep Has His House, and even the industrial works are not all too bad to get through, but this EP was really hard for me. Half way through, I was so close to just stopping the EP and going to something else, but I pushed on, and even though I didn't get rewarded, I did get to feel something truly new in my musical listening. I got too feel really uncomfortable after hearing the insane ramblings of a man swept in paranoia, and the ending where the piece slowly dies with nothing but a few seconds of silence, it really all makes it feel so truly messed up, but that is the main point of it all, to be a messed up and uncomfortable experience, and for that, I think it succeeds in flying colors.

If you want something nice to listen to, do not listen to this, but if you want something challenging, then I couldn't recommend this more. Do I absolutely love this EP for its music? No, but do I think of this as a bonafide masterclass of dark ambient music and poetry? Absolutely.

There are two constants within the band, one, David Tibet being the only member to be in every line-up since the debut, and two, the constantly changing sounds. Every Current 93 album basically has a different sound to each, usually based around David's wants, or more so desires to constantly try new things with his more dark and occultic brand of neo folk and ambient music, which I think reaches quite a great threshold with Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain, which so far, from what I have heard of Current 93, is my favorite album from them.

Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain is such an interesting album as it goes for a heavier, and even more doom and noise metal sound compared to their usual, more softer affairs with folk music. This direction is mostly due to their collaboration EP, Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun, which was a piece with the stoner metal band Om, which I think gave Tibet some inspiration to try a similar, more metal sound himself. Surprisingly enough, this stark contrast in sound actually works for Current 93 in my opinion, sure their more pastoral, albeit creepy folk music takes a tiny bit of a backseat, the identity and musical and lyrical prowess is still felt here. Tibet's poetry here is still as poignant as ever, creating a modernistic fairy tale that whirls through themes of satanic cults, and spiritualism, which seems to be a theme most Current 93 works go after, and one I really find interesting.

I think, even though the sound is a lot more different and heavier compared to stuff like All The Pretty Little Horsies and Sleep Has His House, you still get that awesome and dark sound that I think every Current 93 album should go by. In fact, I feel like David is finding a way to uniquely make another more heavy album, something that could be compared to his 80s works where he experimented with a lot more industrial music, so I think this doom and noise metal effort really works nicely. I am also just a complete sucker for doom metal with some of my favorite bands being Ufomammut and Sleep, so there is that too.

But, what I really adore about this album is just how well each song explores this record's unique atmosphere. A lot of these songs are straight up bone chilling, almost comparable to stuff like Swans or Einstürzende Neubauten in terms of creating these atmospheric and dark sounding songs, but Current 93 gives it all a unique flavor that Tibet has clearly mastered throughout the years, and this mastering of atmospheres and how they are used on here makes this album a tried and true masterpiece in my opinion.

Really, I am quite surprised that this album isn't as well known, or at least well beloved within Current 93's discography. This is as good, if not even better than The Light Is Leaving Us All or Sleep Has His House, as it showcases a band going for a unique, but still really amazing sound, that I think works really, really well. I recommend listening to this at the middle of the night with headphones, as the stereo, in your ear experience helps let this album really go well, but with a nightly setting can really help make this dark album truly shine, or dim, I guess. Absolutely, highly recommend this one for both folk and doom metal fans.