Current 93 | |
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 Current 93 in 2006 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | London, England |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Labels | |
| Members | |
| Past members |
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Current 93 are an English experimental music group, working since the early 1980s in folk-based musical forms. The band was founded in 1982 by David Tibet, [1] who has been Current 93's only constant member.
Tibet has been the only constant member in the group, though Steven Stapleton (of Nurse with Wound) has appeared on nearly every Current 93 release. [2] Michael Cashmore has also been a constant contributor since Thunder Perfect Mind . Douglas P. of Death in June has played on well over a dozen Current 93 releases, and Steve Ignorant of Crass (using the name Stephen Intelligent), Boyd Rice, runologist Freya Aswynn, Nick Cave, Björk, Andrew W.K., Anohni, Baby Dee, Will Oldham, Ben Chasny, Rose McDowall, have also lent their talents over the years.
Current 93 have released over twenty albums and many singles as well.
Much of Current 93's early work was similar to late 1970s and early 1980s industrial music: abrasive tape loops, droning synthesizer noises and Tibet's distorted, excoriating vocals.
Tibet's lyrics have been fairly consistent, regardless of delivery: The earlier recordings reflect his preoccupation with death, Christ, mysticism, Aleister Crowley (Tibet borrowed the term "93 Current" from Crowley – the 93 Current being the current of Thelema or Agape), Tibetan Buddhism, Gnosticism, runes, swastikas, Noddy, The Wicker Man , and a variety of occult notions. The later to present-day period of Current 93's recordings increasingly reflect Tibet's interest in Christian mysticism and apocalypse. Tibet has stated that he identifies as a Christian. [3]
Literary influences include Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror , the Bible, The Poetic Eddas , Hildegard von Bingen, Yukio Mishima, John Dee's De Heptarchia Mystica , The Thunder, Perfect Mind, William Blake, Louis Wain, writer Thomas Ligotti, occult British author Arthur Machen (originator of the title "The Inmost Light"), M.R. James's various ghost stories, The Cloud of Unknowing , Count Eric Stenbock, and Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker . [4]
| Year | Title | Format and special notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Mi-Mort | cassette split with Nurse with Wound |
| 1984 | LAShTAL | 12" |
| 1984 | Nature Unveiled | LP (reissued on CD,1992) |
| 1984 | No Hiding from the Blackbird | 7" split w/ Nurse With Wound |
| 1984 | Dogs Blood Rising | LP (reissued on CD, 1988 and 1995) |
| 1985 | Live at Bar Maldoror | LP (reissued on CD 1990 and 1994) |
| 1985 | Nightmare Culture | EP split with Sickness of Snakes (Coil/Boyd Rice) |
| 1986 | In Menstrual Night | LP (reissued on CD, 1994) |
| 1986 | NL Centrum-Amsterdam | live cassette split w/ Nurse With Wound |
| 1987 | Happy Birthday | 12" |
| 1987 | Dawn | LP (reissued on CD, 1994) |
| 1987 | Imperium | LP (reissued on CD, 2001) |
| 1987 | Crowleymass (with HÖH) | 12"/CDS (reissued in 1997) |
| 1988 | Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow | 2xLP (reissued on CD, 1994) |
| 1988 | The Red Face of God | 12" (reissued on CD with above, 1994) |
| 1988 | Swastikas for Noddy | LP (reissued on CD as Swastikas for Goddy , 1993) |
| 1988 | Faith's Favourites | 12" split with Nurse with Wound |
| 1988 | Earth Covers Earth | LP (reissued on CD, 1992) (limited LP reissue, 2005) |
| 1989 | Rome/Hourglass for Diana/Fields of Rape | 7" (live) |
| 1989 | She Is Dead and All Fall Down | limited edition 7" |
| 1989 | Crooked Crosses for the Nodding God | CD |
| 1990 | Looney Runes | LP, CD 1992 |
| 1990 | 1888 | split EP with Death in June |
| 1990 | Horse | LP, part of a box set/split with Sol Invictus and Nurse With Wound (reissued on CD as Horsey with extra/reworked tracks, 1997) |
| 1991 | Island (with HÖH) | LP/CD |
| 1991 | As the World Disappears (live) | CD |
| 1992 | Thunder Perfect Mind | 2xLP/CD (reissued, 1994) |
| 1992 | Death in June / Current 93 / Sol Invictus (live) | Recorded in Frankfurt, Germany, 1991. Originally a bootleg called Day of Dawn, officially reissued on CD. |
| 1993 | Emblems: The Menstrual Years | LP, issued as 2xCD retrospective |
| 1993 | Hitler as Kalki | CD |
| 1994 | Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre | LP/CD |
| 1994 | The Fire of the Mind | CD/MiniAlbum |
| 1994 | Lucifer Over London | EP/CD |
| 1994 | Tamlin | 12"/CDS |
| 1995 | Where The Long Shadows Fall | 12"/CDS |
| 1996 | All The Pretty Little Horses: The Inmost Light | LP/CD |
| 1996 | The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home | 12"/CDS |
| 1996 | Untitled, a.k.a. Seven Seals | CD-EP with Tiny Tim, Nurse with Wound and Nature and Organization |
| 1997 | In a Foreign Town, in a Foreign Land | limited CD, accompanied Thomas Ligotti book of same name |
| 1998 | Soft Black Stars | LP/CD/sheet music, (reissued on CD in 2005) |
| 1999 | Calling for Vanished Faces | 2xCD retrospective |
| 1999 | An Introduction to Suffering | Current 93/Michael Cashmore/Christoph Heemann LP/CD |
| 1999 | Misery Farm | CDS |
| 1999 | All Dolled Up Like Christ | 2x Live CD |
| 2000 | I Have a Special Plan for This World | 12"/CD, Thomas Ligotti prose poem read by Tibet, treated by Current 93 |
| 2000 | Sleep Has His House | LP/CD |
| 2000 | Faust | LP/CD |
| 2001 | The Great in the Small | LP/CD |
| 2001 | Cats Drunk on Copper | CD (Live at the Union Chapel, London, 3 May 1997) |
| 2001 | Bright Yellow Moon | 2x12"/CD Current 93/Nurse with Wound |
| 2001 | Purtle | CD Split w/ Nurse with Wound |
| 2001 | This Degenerate Little Town | CD with Thomas Ligotti |
| 2002 | The Seahorse Rears to Oblivion | 12"/CD |
| 2002 | Music for the Horse Hospital | 2xCD Current 93/Nurse with Wound |
| 2003 | A Little Menstrual Night Music | CD containing remixes of tracks from In Menstrual Night |
| 2003 | Calling For Vanished Faces/Virgin Mary | 7" split with Antony and the Johnsons; UK PanDurtro 008 |
| 2003 | Live at St. Olave's | CD EP split with Antony and the Johnsons; UK PanDurtro 007 |
| 2004 | Halo | Live CD |
| 2004 | SixSixSix: SickSickSick | CD compilation of Tamlin, Lucifer over London, Misery Farm, and two pieces from Looney Runes |
| 2005 | How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon | 2xCD (Live at St. George The Martyr Anglican Church, Toronto, 18–19 June 2004) |
| 2005 | ⲛⲧⲛⲁⲩ ⲛϩⲱⲧⲡ ⲙⲡⲣⲏ ⲁϩⲉⲛⲉϫⲏⲩ ⲉⲩⲕⲏⲙ ⲟⲩⲉⲙ ⲧⲡⲉ | CDS (promo for Black Ships Ate the Sky ; the Coptic title reads "At Sunset Black Ships Ate The Sky") |
| 2005 | Judas as Black Moth (Hallucinatory Patripassianist Song) | 2xCD "best of"/introduction to C93's works |
| 2005 | How He Loved The Moon | 2xCD/2xLP (ltd. 1200)/2xLP+7" (ltd. 200), a remixed version of In Menstrual Night |
| 2005 | Hypnagogue/Hypnagogue II | CD |
| 2006 | Black Ships Ate the Sky | CD / 2xLP |
| 2006 | Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun | Split 10" with Om |
| 2006 | Black Ships Eat the Sky | CD – Alternate mixes |
| 2007 | The Inmost Light | 3xCD/2xLP reissue of Where The Long Shadows Fall , All the Pretty Little Horses , and The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home |
| 2007 | Birdsong in The Empire | Live CD (ltd. 1200) Recorded in Toronto, Canada, 2005 |
| 2008 | Black Ships Heat the Dancefloor | Blue 12" single/DualDisc, remixes by JG Thirlwell and Matmos |
| 2008 | Birth Canal Blues | CD EP April 2008 |
| 2009 | Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain | CD/LP |
| 2010 | Baalstorm, Sing Omega | CD/LP |
| 2010 | Haunted Waves, Moving Graves | Limited-edition CD (999 copies) and 12" picture disc (666 copies). Both editions have different track listings. |
| 2010 | When the May Rain Comes | 12" purple & white vinyl (200 copies). 12" purple vinyl (300 copies). 12" black vinyl (500 copies). CD EP (Deluxe Digipak 6 panel). |
| 2011 | HoneySuckle Æons | Released 24 March 2011 |
| 2012 | When Rome Falls, Falls the World | Live CD |
| 2014 | I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell: A Channel | CD/LP |
| 2015 | The Moons at Your Door | CD/LP |
| 2018 | The Light Is Leaving Us All | CD/LP |
| 2019 | Invocations of Almost | CD/LP (the 12" LP has a slightly shorter version and mix than the 59-minute CD) |
| 2022 | If a City Is Set Upon a Hill | CD/LP |
Music sheets for piano and voice were released in 2017 by Terentyev Music Publishing Company, containing the album Soft Black Stars . The digital version is the complete music transcription of the album. The printed version contains piano notation and the lyrics (but not the vocal lines) and provides a complete overview of which melodies and harmonies each song from Soft Black Stars should be improvised around, "to make your own stars" as David Tibet writes. The press-release says "It was, indeed, in this way that the Soft Black Stars were created during the recording sessions and in concerts." [5]
Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak. The band's work has explored genres such as industrial, noise, dark ambient, and drone.
The Wall of Sacrifice is an experimental, dark folk album by Death in June. The original vinyl pressing, released in 1989, was limited to 666 copies. A CD version was released in 1990.
David Tibet is an English poet and artist who founded the music group Current 93, of which he is the only full-time member.
Ian Read is an English neofolk and traditional folk musician, and occultist active within chaos magic and Germanic mysticism circles.
William Breeze, also known by his neo-Gnostic bishop title of Tau Silenus, is an American writer and publisher on magick and philosophy. He is the Sovereign Patriarch, or supreme governing cleric, of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.), the liturgical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), of which he is the current Outer Head of the Order (OHO), also known as Frater Superior, as well as caliph, the order's international leader. In this capacity he is a leading editor of the occult works of Aleister Crowley, the founder of the philosophy and religion of Thelema, who is regarded as its prophet.
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, also known as HÖH, is a musician, an art director, and allsherjargoði of Ásatrúarfélagið.
Tago Mago is the second studio album by the German krautrock band Can, originally released as a double LP in August 1971 on the United Artists label. It was the band's first album to feature Damo Suzuki after the 1970 departure of previous vocalist Malcolm Mooney. Recorded in a rented castle near Cologne, the album features long-form experimental tracks blending rock improvisation, funk rhythms and musique concrète techniques.
Thunder Perfect Mind is an album by the English experimental group Current 93, released on 28 July 1992. It contains two tracks based on the Gnostic poem The Thunder, Perfect Mind, which also gave the album its name. Thunder Perfect Mind has a companion album by the same name recorded by Nurse With Wound, released at the same time, though the two albums have little in common with each other musically.
Of the Wand & the Moon is the neofolk/experimental project of Danish musician Kim Larsen and various guest contributors.
Swastikas for Noddy is a 1988 album by English music group Current 93. It charted on New Musical Express's Independent LPs chart in March 1988. It was originally issued simultaneously on CD and LP by Crepuscule Records' industrial subsidiary L.A.Y.L.A.H. Records and later reissued as a remastered CD by Durtro Records in 1994 under the slightly revised title "Swastikas For Goddy", the renaming being due to copyright infringement issues involving Enid Blyton's character Noddy. The album title "Swastikas for Noddy" originates from when David Tibet tried to think up the most unsuitable thing the character Noddy could be given as a present.
All the Pretty Little Horses (TheInmostLightItself) is an album by English band Current 93. It forms the second part of the Inmost Light trilogy; the first being 1995's Where the Long Shadows Fall (Beforetheinmostlight) and the last being 1996's The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home (Theinmostlightthirdandfinal). Unlike its bookends, All the Pretty Little Horses is a full-length album. Like the earlier Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre, All the Pretty Little Horses contains several songs based on repeating melodic themes. Lyrically, the album revolves around the ideas of pain and death, specifically as reflected in Patripassianist philosophy, along with the overarching concept of the "inmost light", or soul. In contrast, the music itself is some of Current 93's most traditional, relying heavily on acoustic guitar. Exceptions appear in the form of two spoken-word tracks: the ominous, drone-based round "Twilight Twilight Nihil Nihil", and "Patripassian", backed mainly by a heavily treated loop of Carlo Gesualdo's Miserere.
For the companion album by Current 93, see Thunder Perfect Mind.
Dawn is an album by the English group Current 93. It is among the earlier releases of Current 93 and has a more industrial sound, compared to the band's current apocalyptic folk sound. Originally released in 1987 as an LP on the Maldoror label, it was reissued in 1989 on CD by Durtro. This reissue mistakenly contained an alternate version of "Great Black Time". In 2002, the album was again reissued on CD, containing both the alternate and the original LP version of "Great Black Time". In 2009, the album was yet again reissued on CD, restoring only the original vinyl edition and excluding the bonus tracks from earlier editions. The limited bonus disc contained an Andrew Liles remix.
Elizabeth Hooijschuur, known by her pen name Freya Aswynn, is a Dutch writer and musician, primarily known for her activities related to modern paganism in the United Kingdom. She was an early exponent of a form of Germanic neopaganism centred on women and has influenced the international modern pagan community through her book Leaves of Yggdrasil. Aswynn was involved in the early neofolk music scene in London in the 1980s, when several musicians of the genre lived in her house in Tufnell Park.
The Landig Group was an occultist and neo-völkisch group formed in 1950, that first gathered for discussions at the studio of the designer Wilhelm Landig in the Margareten district of Vienna. The circle's most prominent and influential members were Wilhelm Landig (1909–1997), Erich Halik and Rudolf J. Mund (1920–1985). The circle has also been referred to as the Landig Circle, Vienna Group and Vienna Lodge.
Soft Black Stars is an album by Current 93. The title refers to an image found in "Teatro Grottesco", a story by Thomas Ligotti. Virtually all of the music on this album was written and adapted by Michael Cashmore, David Tibet and Maja Elliott with the exception of "Judas as Black Moth", "A Gothic Love Song" and "Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still"; the music for these songs was written by Michael Cashmore. Almost all of the songs feature only David Tibet's lyrics accompanied by minimalistic piano music: with the exception of "Judas as Black Moth" which is solo piano and "Chewing on Shadows" consist of drones, piano, guitar and David Tibet's singing. The artwork was made by David Tibet. "Chewing on Shadows" was released in a different form on vinyl and it was included in the album's CD re-issue in 2005. In 2003, a live album was released called Some Soft Black Stars Seen Over London which contained live versions for seven of the album's songs. In 2017 a sheet-music version was released, including all the piano and vocal parts from the original recording.
Halo is a live album by Current 93, released in 2004. The cover is a drawing by David Tibet, which reproduces the cover of The Moody Blues' 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
LAShTAL is the first EP solely by Current 93, after the previous split EP with Nurse with Wound. The EP features musicians Fritz Häaman and John Balance in addition to the primary Current 93 member David Tibet. "LAShTAL" and "Salt" were later released on the Current 93 compilation Nature Unveiled.
Imperium is a studio album released in 1987 by the English experimental group Current 93. It was made during a musical style shift between the earlier abrasive industrial sound of Current 93, and the more neofolk inspired approach that would characterize most of their subsequent output. It was originally released as an LP in 1987 on the Maldoror label, but in 1992 it was also released as a CD on David Tibet's Durtro label. Since then it has been reissued several times as both LP and CD on Durtro. The latest issue is from 2006, and is only for sale in Russia and CIS countries.
Island is a studio album by HÖH and Current 93, released in November 1991 through Durtro. It differs from much of Current 93's output due to its prominent use of synthesizers and ambient music. Some of the compositions also appear on HÖH's soundtrack for the film Children of Nature. The CD release of Island includes humorous bonus tracks.
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