CLII. Antony And The Johnsons / Current 93 | Live At Saint Olave's Church

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS / CURRENT 93

Live At Saint Olave's Church

©PanDurtro. UK, 2002.

‟British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label. The debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released in 1998. In 2001, Hegarty released a short follow-up EP, I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy, which, in addition to the title track, included a cover of "Mysteries of Love", a David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti song and "Soft Black Stars", a Current 93 cover.

Producer Hal Willner heard the EP and played it to Lou Reed, who immediately recruited him for his project The Raven. Now gaining more attention, Hegarty signed to US-based record label Secretly Canadian, and released another EP, The Lake, with Lou Reed guest-performing on one of the tracks. Secretly Canadian also re-released Hegarty's debut album in the United States to wider distribution in 2004.

This tape Recorded live at St. Olave's Church, London on April 5th and 6th, 2002. Antony dedicates his performances in loving memory of Nellie Hegarty.‟

Deathwish

 

CXLIV. Rozz Williams And Gitane Demone | Dream Home Heartache

ROZZ WILLIAMS AND GITANE DEMONE

Dream Home Heartache

©Triple X. US, 1995.

‟This 1995 collaboration between Rozz Williams and Gitane Demone finds them abandoning their death-rock origins, instead attempting a more esoteric stance. It works in their favour.

The album kicks in with a nightmarish cabaret take on the Roxy Music classic "In Every Dream Home A Heartache", which explodes in a frenzied litany in the end with Demone's wailing vocals. Similarly, "These Vulnerable Eyes" finds Demone in full-blown jazzy cabaret diva mode. The mood is that of an autumn walk by a river in an elegant European city. Rozz then takes over with "The Pope's Egg Hat", a somber piano meditation, with Gitane in the background playing the muse enchanting lost souls.

Things get slightly more lively with "Flowers", and the almost vivid "A World apart" (yet still enclosed in the album's sense of tragedy). The album reaches yet another peak with the lullaby "Moon Without A Tear", with Gitane's tender vocals contrasting a menacing drone. And finally, the reprise of "Dream Home Heartache" swirls with almost apocalyptic intensity. The album has completed a full circle.

Rozz Williams and Gitane Demone may well have found their true niche here.‟

Ily

XXXVIII. Boyd Rice | The Black Album

  
BOYD RICE

The Black album

©Boyd Rice (Self-Released). US, 1977.

‟This originally late 1975 recorded, 1977 self released (in a run of eighty six copies), and 1981 (Mute) properly (re) released Black Album (as it was originally known) can hardly be considered a standard long player, but more like something of a bricolage of recorded/isolated/(mis)treated/looped/found sound fragments making for a 43:24" (if you dind't go for the multi speed thing) experience rather than a collection of handy song structures.

Contextually, or historically if you prefer, this is pretty much as out there, exploratory/provocative speaking anyway, as any of them.

The fragmentary and at times drone like frenzy here simultaneously evokes a Hymnen period Karlheinz Stockhausen, a young and riotous John Cale, and of course, his highness Milan Knížák. Not a small feat at all in my book. A very chunky (but not quite) musical artifact.‟

Chispita

XV. The Legendary Pink Dots | The Maria Dimension

 

THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS

The Maria Dimension

©PIAS. België, 1991.

“Somos los observadores del desastre, somos los bailarines sobre tu tumba. Somos los invasores invisibles de tu intimidad ... tus sueños. Somos los espectros en tu pantalla.” Disturbance.

“Tal vez habrá una visión de Mesías en las estrellas. Ahora todos se confiesan y piden un deseo. El sacerdote pasa alrededor del plato ... nuestra Señora vende pañuelos para secarnos las lágrimas, para todos los años de bendita violación en el nombre de nuestro Dulce señor.” Third Secret.

‟Liderados por el genial Edward Ka-Spel, Legendary Pink Dots, fundados en agosto de 1981 en Londres y migrados en 1984 a Holanda, donde actualmente residen, se han remarcado como uno de los más innovadores grupos surgidos en la década de los 80. Con mas de 40 álbumes a su haber y fanáticos dispersos por todo el mundo, LPD nadan entre la neo-psicodelia, el ambient, el industrial, el psych folk, el synth-pop o el goth rock, con un distintivo sello experimental/avant-garde; su sonido ha evolucionado permanentemente lo que dificulta ubicarlos en algún genero o estilo especifico. Tal sonido distintivo, combinado a las perturbadoras líricas y el característico estilo vocal de Ka-Spel ha hecho que los comparen con el Pink Floyd de Syd Barrett, y con grupos surgidos en los 70’s como Can, Faust, Magma o Neu!

El álbum a continuación, The Maria Dimension, lanzado en 1991, representó su mayor éxito en ventas. Los integrantes del grupo, siempre cambiante, para este trabajo fueron Phil Knight, Bob Pistoor, Niels Van Hoorn y el omnipresente Edward Ka-Spel.‟

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