Current 93

wow @ new album with Sasha Grey & Andrew WK

?!?

!!!?

Thanks Stan!

I guess this led to sth

Minds be explodin': Andrew WK joins Current 93

I searched for Current 93 and your thread wasn't on the first page, sorry :-(

This thread is too short. A bit of news from the C93 mailing list today:

'.'93 Current 93'.' to play two major shows in London on 28 & 29 May 2010

'.'93 CURRENT 93'.', the ultimate Hallucinatory Gnostic Supergroup, will play two shows in The HMV Forum, Kentish Town, London on Friday 28 May and Saturday 29 May to celebrate 25 years of Current 93 and also to celebrate David Tibet’s 50th birthday.

Special guests are to be the unmatched NURSE WITH WOUND (28th), the glorious COMUS (29th), the ghostlike RAMESES III (29th). Other special guests will be announced.

just the other day i was appreciating current 93.
that show sounds amazing

OH SHIT

Hope it's the same band that played on Aleph.

From the C93 mailing list:

Beautiful wool CatEarHat

http://mog.state51.co.uk/tid/6101ab58ee68742c6842b9dc6da9c31fb518b181/edlwrzs/hacqqcljq/1462604740054.jpeg
David wears his CatEarHat

I was given this beautiful black woollen CatEarHat by an Italian Woman called Michaela Cuoghi at one of the C93 London shows on 28/29 May. THANK YOU MICHAELA!

New one comes out this month.
Anyone know what happened with US minitour?

What's the live show like at the moment? Playing very near where I'll be in two weeks.

"lily" and "moon" have sucked me in. "like dogs dreaming of the coming master -- dark dawn"

Oh god yeah, "HoneySuckle Æons" is such a strong record- the theremin and oud combo is crazy but sounds so right with his voice, and the lyrics are tight- I drove home from NYC in the dark listening to it a few months back and it's just perfect- he's really on top form on that one. Haven't heard the "Baalstorm, Sing Omega" new one yet- hope he stays on a roll like this!

OK y'all just sold me on the new one, will pick it up next week.

I wish he would just finally follow through with those NY dates!

agree w/ tune is space, the new one is fantastic. i havent heard baalstorm either... had mixed feelings on the one before that :/

http://thequietus.com/articles/13769-current-93-nick-cave-these-new-puritans

David Tibet has enlisted Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty (both on "voice and voices") and These New Puritans' Jack Barnett for "organ, sound design and voices", as well as The Groundhogs members Tony McPhee and Carl Stokes, avant-garde composer and saxophonist John Zorn and guitarist James Blackshaw, for the record, set for release on March 3 2014 via Tibet's Coptic Cat label.

haha wow

I listened to the trilogy of Aleph, Baalstorm, and Honeysuckle a couple of weeks ago and Aleph in particular stood out as being strong, mostly due to Chasny's freakout guitar imo.

yayyyyyyy

Honeysuckle might be my favorite of the last 3 (xpost)

Just stumbled upon "I Have A Special Plan For This World" - just wow

Special Plan was my introduction to C93, found in a Tower Records used bin at a time when all I knew about it was that it involved Thomas Ligotti. At that time I think I'd heard a Napstered mp3 of "All the Pretty Little Horses" and nothing else. A friend who I played "Pretty Horses" for said it sounded like Hannibal Lecter singing a lullaby so that's the quick description I've given of C93 ever since.

Some dude on vimeo had an amazing homemade vid for IHASPFTW, but for some reason took it down and now I can no longer find his page.

Yeah even if you don't care for anything C93 related that's a worthwhile record.

I have Calling For Vanished Faces and very little else. Not sure what else I need, do have some live stuff over the last 6 years or so too though.

imo you need:

In Menstrual Night
Thunder Perfect Mind
All The Pretty Little Horsies
Sleep Has His House
maybe Honeysuckle Aeons? one of the new ones, anyway

start with the essential trilogy:
thunder perfect mind
of ruine or some blazing star
all the pretty horses

Oh yeah, I do have All The Pretty Horses, pretty nice one. Steve Stapleton sent me a package after I met him at a University end of year thing at the GMIT Art section about 9 years ago including that.
Like the fact that he worked with both Shirley Collins and Nick cave on that

My top 5
...horses
Of ruine...
Halo (live)
Six sic sick (singles comp)
Honeysuckle

With Thunder and Aleph and Foreign Town and Hypnagogue just behind

I'd add Swastikas for Noddy, which I've always thought of as the quintessential early C93 album.

yeah not my fave by any means but if somebody wanted to get their feet wet, that's teh one I'd prob recommend

In retrospect Black Ships Ate The Sky is where Tibet and I began to part company, this was the first album where he started bringing in a raggle-taggle band of guest contributors for live and studio work. For me Current was never only about Tibet, it was about his fellow travellers – people like Stapleton, Balance, Rose, Douglas P, and later Cashmore. Together they formed a powerful unit which made sense and meant something in the history of what Keenan called England's hidden reverse. Gradually they all drifted away for one reason or another and now we are left with this kind of post-industrial Rolling Thunder Revue where Current is Tibet plus whoever he is mates with. In a way I'm glad I wasnt at the Union Chapel last night, it would have underlined the huge loss I've felt since the Walthamstow Royal Standard gig in 1992 which in retrospect was a true highwater mark and an important gathering of the tribes for me and a lot of people I knew and loved at the time, honestly fuck Tibet now and what he's done to the band I loved.

guests on the new one include nick cave, john zorn, antony hegarty, james blackshaw, jack barnett (these new puritans), tony mcphee & carl stokes (the groundhogs), and bobbie watson & jon seagroatt (comus)

should've called it do they know it's candlemas?

or We're Starres

(It's a Hear'N Aid joke.)

Anagram - you seem to have a bit of history with the band, so I'd be curious to hear more as to why you feel Tibet screwed up C93. The way I see it, C93 was always Tibet + rotating cast of pals.

Well I dunno, I think I said all I could really. You're right, the people in the earlier Current were his pals as well, but they were more than that – they were friends with each other, they were part of the same movement, they came from the same context, and they made C93 sound and feel like a proper band. Douglas P's admittedly rudimentary strumming, Joolie Wood's violin and clarinet, Balance's crazed b/vox, they all helped to give Current an identifiable sound and over and above Tibet's rantings. Of course this was only one phase of the band's existence but it's the one that always meant the most to me.

ok - you're right, 1988-1995 C93 did feel more like a band with an identifable sound and identity - whereas I guess these days, it feels more like a project maybe? I stopped seriously following C93 after Pretty Horses but I can see why Tibet may have wanted to shake up the formula (a bit the same thing happened with Douglas P. I feel)

I think Current peaked in the years when the core was Tibet/Stapleton/Cashmore, beginning with 'As the World Dissapears' and ending with 'Sleep Has His House' and the other peripheral abstract records from around the same period (Faust, Who is the Sufferer?, etc...) They really evolved something special and timeless. Stapleton's departure took away a great deal of subtlety - Andrew Liles is a very poor substitute (I don't like him in NWW either, especially in concert where he seems to take great pleasure in sabotaging everything at exactly the wrong moment). The loss of Cashmore as principal composer really marked the end of anything consistent. I also believe 'Black Ships' was the tipping point - it's all been downhill since. The recent records often cross the line into self-parody (especially the terribly hackneyed 'exotic' elements that have been cropping up lately).

Listening to any of the recent records very carefully side-by-side with something like 'All the Pretty Little Horses' is very revealing - the latter contains so much more fine, carefully considered detail that after nearly 20 years I'm still discovering little background things I hadn't noticed before... the new records are all surface and no depth by comparison, and I can't help thinking that this is due to the absence of Stapleton's particular expertise at coating everything in that special layer of dreamlike unease.

Tibet's problem seems to be that when he really likes people he tends not to see their (very) obvious shortcomings (and of course when he falls out with people he conversely only sees their shortcomings), and so is always convinced that the latest version of C93 is the best. He seems genuinely hurt and offended if you tell him that your favourite record of his is from 15 years ago and becomes very dismissive. But he really is only as good as the chemistry between himself and his collaborators.

I heard Cashmore was not getting royalties for his songwriting contributions.

Black Ships Ate The Sky was actually my first. I recall some rock magazines (who I doubt covered many of the previous albums) were saying it was one of their best albums ever (perhaps because of the guest stars). I loved "Bind Your Tortoise Mouth" (I would have loved it to be a bit longer though) but I was underwhelmed by it in general.

I think black ships is kind of weak but the albums since have been really strong and coherent IMO and do not follow black ships down its road of folly

I agree w/ the peak era. The Inmost Light trilogy are my go to releases whenever I want to listen to c93. Just playing the new one for the first time. Gotta admit, I'm enjoying it immensely so far.

don't have much to add here except that I like Honeysuckle Aeon a whole lot, Aleph & Baalstorm are ones I can hang with as well. Some of this discussion gets into Carducci "bands vs. projects" territory. I definitely felt like I lost interest after Sleep..., I skipped everything for years until picking up the last three (two of which were used). most of the records in that period seemed to be endless recycling of various live gigs anyway.

Hold on - has there been more than 3 albums since Sleep? Maybe the discussion is also whether people like their C93 creepy-folky or creepy-proggy?

albums proper, I think, are:

Black Ships
Aleph
Baalstorm
Honeysuckle

It's not an either/or for me... I agree that the Cashmore/Stapleton chemical was the ne plus ultra but the last 3 really hold their own imo. I don't listen to Sleep Has His House and Stars thingy (the piano one) that often and prefer those songs in their live guise on the Halo album.

i dunno "i remember the berlin boys" is as magical as anything on pretty horses. seasick piano parlor jauntiness reminds me of mira billote's white magic, one of his sonic descendants i love

oh that's out? man you're fast

i'm divining with old nww list band name acrostics

it was on sale at the Union Chapel and has leaked as well.

it is also "available" via seance

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/46700363.jpg

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/46700363.jpg