INVOCATIONS OF ALMOST

One of the things you have to say about David Tibet is that the music he produces for his Current 93 project is always evolving/morphing into something else. On his 2019 release "Invocations of Almost", music that he created to accompany his exhibition at The Begovich Gallery, you can fully experience his newest complete transformation. We have heard him moving to this style in his last few albums, and now he has moved into an ambient/drone laden style that almost sound more like post rock which incorporates subdued vocals, drones, shoegaze, minimal sound, and a more unpredictable dynamic style. But through it all, he keeps his lyrical style, just now with a lot less drama and a lot more monotone, whispery and spoken word than before, but with the dark and tenuous sound.

This is the overall feel of the music on this album. However, that doesn't mean that it is all a one-level, monotonous sound through the entire album. These 9 tracks, which are all unnamed movements, can vary a lot in emotion, some actually sounding quite joyous at times, and the dynamic level is always changing, just not in the typical "start soft and crescendo to a climax", but with a more classical style of building and breaking down at irregular intervals. The music consists of some synth, guitar, percussion, bass and all of the usual instruments in rock music, but more in a post-rock, progressive style. It's sometimes hypnotic and other times totally capturing your attention.

This is not music for everyone, which is one constant through Current 93's discography. It's experimental and non- traditional, still following the neo-folk lyricism, but with a style that incorporates a lot of the more recent styles and not so much of the traditional folk styles. Its a pretty good listen, but seems to wear out its welcome by the end of the album. Its music that probably does better with visualizations of some kind. As far as casual listening, however, it works okay as background music, which I suppose it was originally intended. It sounded great after the first listen, but seems to lose it's greatness after that and as such, doesn't get a full listen very often.