Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Durtro. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Durtro. Mostrar todas las entradas

miércoles, 11 de enero de 2012

CLXXI. Current 93 | Black Ships Ate The Sky



















Black Ships Ate The Sky
©Durtro Jnana. UK, 2006.


Ya puedes tenerte por un bragado y poderoso matador de discos. Si se abre el chiquero y lo que sale es un pedazo morlaco de la ganadería Current 93, encomiéndate a Pedro Romero y a Joselito el Gallo, porque es muy probable que te den los tres avisos, el bicho se te escape vivo, encampanado y desafiante, y no hayas podido pegarle más que un par de mantazos, huyendo. Ni picadores ni banderilleros te servirán de nada. Como no entables una cierta complicidad con el bicho, a base de mimetizarte con él en lo que dure la faena de la escucha, vas apañado.

Si su voluminoso ¡¡"grandes éxitos"?? ("Judas as Black Moth") hacía a nuestro hombre más asequible que nunca, enfantizando sus momentos más "pastorales", aquí volvemos a las andadas. Perdida en la noche de los tiempos la fascinación por Aleister Crowley (¿o no?), Tibet es un predicador terrible que nos acongoja con la inminencia del Apocalipsis. Si tendía, en discos recientes, a un sonido más remansado y neofolkie, más ajeno al mundo de su eterno compadre Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Bound), aquí reaparece el gótico más tenebrista.

Tibet está convencido de que el segundo advenimiento de Cristo traerá una era arcádica, pero se recrea en el preludio terrible a tamaña bendición. Por cada rincón del disco, las fuerzas diabólicas y las ovejas negras combaten sin tregua con ángeles belicosos del Antiguo Testamento. A modo de paréntesis, hasta en ocho versiones distintas, las palabras hermosísimas de un poema del siglo XVIII (Idumea) cobran distintos y ambiguos sentidos (siendo las mismas) en función de lo que con ellas hacen el vocalista invitado y los arreglistas. Brilla sobremanera Marc Almond y cumplen con más discreción Antony (muchacho, ¿no te estás pasando con tanta ubicuidad?) o Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (idéntica duda, aunque el bueno de Oldham ya nos tiene más acostumbrados a ser el perejil de infinitos guisos).

El incontinente Mr. Tibet, din duda imbuido del carácter de mandato divino que hay en su prédica, nos endosa casi ochenta minutos de delirio, acción trepidante, remansos e infiernos en la tierra. Dado su ritmo de producción, reincidirá, sin que paeen mucho más meses, y seguirá aumentando su núcleo de incondicionales.

No es convencional, no es amable y no es acogedor, pero el mundo de David Tibet, extraordinario autor de textos alucinados/alucinantes, guarda recompensa, precisamente, para quienes conceden un generoso plus de respetabilidad a los artistas que no han surgido de ningún molde conocido, y que a nadie se parecen. En ese sentido, el caballero que se esconde tras el seudónimo Current 93 es un portento.

Khurcius




domingo, 27 de noviembre de 2011

CXXXIII. Current 93 | Earth Covers Earth





















Earth Covers Earth
©Durtro. UK, 1992.


‟As most of you know by now, I'm a wee bit of a C93 obsessive.  Well this album is to blame for that I'm afraid, this was my introduction to their warped and twisted world.  Not an album I'd recommend as a starting point, but a damn fine listen nonetheless, this album was released when C93 were still trying to find their folky feet, and David Tibet was trying to discover his true voice.

The original release is only 6 tracks long, starting with versions of "The Dilly Song", a simple nursery rhyme, sung unaccompanied.  "Hourglass" makes two appearances, one narrated/sung by David Tibet, one narrated by a child's voice.  The lyrics are from a 17th century poem by John Hall, showing that Tibet yet wasn't really confident in using his own poetry, but also using Hall's words perfectly to deliver his message.  The only genuine C93 classic from this original set of tracks, is "Rome (for Douglas P)", a live favourite still, a folky singalong of a song, which would have graced an album such as Thunder Perfect Mind.

The additional tracks on the CD version, really make this release the 5 star release that it is.  The two versions of "At the Blue Gates of Death" are both essential, beautiful recordings.  One version is a shorter, paranoid vision of a song, with grinding backwards bass, the other, a gorgeous happy ode to a life well lived, you can feel the sun shining on your face as Rose McDowall's backing vocals perfectly complement Tibet's relaxed delivery.  "God Has Three Faces and Wood Has no Name", "She is Dead and all Fall Down" are two more slightly bonkers tracks, which would both fit perfectly on TPM.
Final track "The Dream Moves of the Sleeping King" really has no place on this, or any other C93 album.  That's not to say it's worthless, far from it, but it really is a Nurse with Wound style track, a long surreal melange of sounds, I can't see Tibet having had much input on it, it sounds practically all Stapleton to me.

DarknessFish



 

martes, 5 de julio de 2011

IV. Current 93 | Thunder Perfect Mind

 


















Thunder Perfect Mind
©Durtro. UK, 1992.



Thunder Perfect Mind reminds me of a horror-film cliché that I've never been quite able to understand - the rule that for something to be scary, it has to be old.  From Dracula to War of the Worlds to The Exorcist to Ringu to Cloverfield, it seems that in a significant percentage of horror films that play by the rules, it's always implied (if not outright explained) that the evil the characters are facing is something from another time that has been re-awakened.


Current 93 are a bit like that.  For the first 9 or so songs, the album sounds ancient, and deliberately so; chord progressions and orchestral arrangements are swiped from chamber music and pre-blues folk music, the male vocals sound more like a preacher giving a sermon than a singer, and "A Song for Douglas After He's Dead" lifts directly from Chopin's funeral march.  It sounds positively medieval, in a way matched only by a few bands I can think of (Rome and H.E.R.R. are the two that particularly come to mind).  The horror, the evil, is only ever implied.  That's just the first half of the album though - after that, everything fragments, cracks start to appear, and all that darkness bubbles over onto the surface.


Is that disappointing, or a compromise of Current 93's ability?  I wonder, and I feel like the answer is probably yes.  I'd like to think that, as a listener, I'd realise the darkness and the haunting mood behind these songs anyway, even if the second half of the record didn't steam in and make it obvious.  I think most people would.   We can't speak on the behalf of David Tibet, so we don't know what his intention was when he recorded this, but it seems possible that he was worried that people just wouldn't get it.  And maybe, if you think of it in those terms, the second half of the album becomes a little patronising, in the same way that the reveal of the monster in Cloverfield seemed to imply that the directors thought the audience's imaginations wouldn't be active enough to come up with anything better‟

Iai