Oh how we once were so smitten with Rivers Cuomo. There is no denying the pop brilliance of the first two Weezer records and even the first several tracks on their comeback (Green) album from several years back, but since then it's sadly been pretty downhill for the Weezer boys who have sort of sunk into 'modern rock' mediocrity. But we have to admit that recently we revisited some of the not so hot more recent Weezer records to find there are still a couple great tracks to be found amidst all that drivel. This is a collection of Rivers Cuomo's home recordings spanning from the early '90s to the present day. It's helped us remember why we fell so hard for Rivers in the first place. Earnest, humble and endearing pop songwriting captured in its most pure and simple state. We love the liner notes for each song with short little stories as Cuomo tells us how the song came to be. There are for sure a few misses (the Ice Cube cover is a serious offender!) and it's easy to imagine that folks who never dug Weezer might not like this, but if you ever had any sort of soft spot for Weezer you will find a few more treasures from the Rivers Cuomo vault to help you hold on to that faith for a little longer.
This is what is supposed to be the last part in a trilogy linking the epic gloom of The Cure's "Pornography" and "Disintegration". The resident long time Cure fans find this a bit disappointing, while the Cure 'dabblers' think this is pretty darn good.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Disintegration is one of those albums, that pretty much all of us can distinctly remember when it first entered our lives and how much it impacted us then. Some of us were in college, some in high school, some in junior high, and it was one of those records that became such an integral part of our existence. It was yearning, and heartbreak, and sadness, and the most romantic kind of doom and gloom. It still stands as one of our favorite Cure albums, so we were super excited for it to get a deluxe expanded reissue, complete with two extra discs of music.
We probably don't need to talk much about the proper album itself as it's a classic, but the bonus stuff totally makes this worth buying again! The second disc is a collection of instrumental demos and rehearsal takes and the third disc is the 1989 live record Entreat Plus. But it's that second disc that really does it for us, the raw demos are just so damn good and beyond relevant to the current avalanche of lo-fi '80s-obsessed warped music makers. You could just imagine folks like John Maus, Blank Dogs, Gary War, etc. drooling with envy at the sound of those way stripped down untouched bedroom demos. And ultimately that's what they are, many of them recordings of just Robert Smith alone in his bedroom putting to tape the earliest incarnations of these classic songs.
Feels so nice to get to have a new moment with Disintegration, as it will always be one of those records that takes each of us to a special moment in our lives, when it was our soundtrack, one of many records that would play a huge part in determining out musical tastes, even to this day, and the demos are just further proof of what a lasting legacy and impact The Cure at their prime has had on us and so much of the music we love.
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
If for whatever reason you are waffling about which one of these reissues to get (which you shouldn't be!), the one to get is Faith. This is not because Faith is the best of the three records (that's too close to call), but because of Robert Smith wisely included the soundtrack to "Carnage Visors" as one of the rare tracks on this double CD set. "Carnage Visors" was an animated film produced by Ric Gallup as the opening act for the Faith tour back in 1981. 27 minutes long and entirely instrumental, it's a lugubious piece grounded by an elliptical, moody kaleidoscope of Simon Gallup's basslines, accentuated by a simple drum machine and chiming guitars from Robert Smith. If Rothko had extended their swansong "Roads Become Rivers" into a half an hour composition, it would be pretty close to the majesty of "Carnage Visors", which had first appeared as the b-side to the cassette version of Faith back in the '80s, and hasn't seen the light of day appart from unauthorized bootlegs. Lest you think that this is the only reason to get the double disc set, the original set of tracks of Faith is an exceptional manifestation of manic depression with the undeniably bubbly pop jangle of "Primary" set against the appropriately titled "The Drowning Man" and the equally somber "All Cats Are Grey."
Yeah, so what. Another Cure greatest hits record. Most everybody who cares either has all of their albums or has the -last- greatest hits album. But we were particularly interested in the bonus disc of greatest hits performed acoustically. High hopes were dashed a bit though, as the songs weren't -exactly- acoustic, rather full band, with acoustic guitars instead of electric.
Isn't it always about a girl? Unless boys are your thing, and then the rhetorical question would be 'isn't it always about a boy?' Well, for me (Jim) it was girls; and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was the soundtrack to many a teenage romance. In hindsight, these relationships were all doomed from the start; but at the time, youthful idealism and the magnetic bond between two social outcasts was more than enough reason to think that any of these love affairs would last forever. Of course, the original cassette of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me that was played over and over and over again in balmy nights during Tennessee summers is long gone, replaced by an equally well worn piece of vinyl. While the claustrophobic oppression of Pornography and the wintery sparseness of Faith marked The Cure's prior dourness, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was their breakout album as a kaleidoscope of emotional instability, just the perfect recipe for a couple of arty misfit teenagers. There are schmaltzy love ballads. There are tempestuous firestorms of churning guitar psychedelia. There are mope rock epics. And there are two bona fide Top 10 hits on the album.
Listening to the album now as I'm well into my 30s, I find myself occasionally embarrassed... not entirely because of what Robert Smith is crooning about, but because of the memories that the album conjures up from the past. I'll spare you the details of my teenage relationships (for both of our sakes), but as for remastered and repackaged reissue of Kiss Me, it holds up pretty well. To be completely honest, I probably don't need to hear "Why Can't I Be You?" and "Just Like Heaven" again; but The Cure has crafted plenty of mood-altering gems on this album darkly lysergic tracks such as "The Kiss" and "The Snakepit" interpersed with more goth-pop delirium as on "Hot Hot Hot" or "Catch." As on the previous Cure reissues, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me comes with a CD of bonus material. Unfortunately, there aren't too many great tracks to behold from the live material and demo versions... Really what the hell happened to all of the b-sides to the singles? That quibble aside, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is now available again; and it's probably one of those albums that you already know whether you need it (again) or not.
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
Where Seventeen Seconds and Faith are clearly born of the same sensibility with grey, rainy production spaciously drizzled throughout archetypal mope rock tracks, Pornography is a considerably different beast. Smoldering with intensity and claustrophobic to a fault, Pornography is easily the darkest album that The Cure has ever produced. From the doomy opener "One Hundred Years" to the title track with cascading drum machine marches and relentless blasts of guitar noise, Robert Smith unleashes an anger in his self-loathing that doesn't manifest itself anywhere else in his signature gloomy romanticism.
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
Seventeen Seconds began the creative partnership between Robert Smith and bassist Simon Gallup which is essentially the foundation for all of the great work from The Cure. Where the previous bassist Michael Dempsey gave The Cure a spry, punchy sound that fit more in line with contemporaries like The Jam, Gallup's lumbering basslines presented themselves as a counterpoint to Smith's manic-depressive jangle. While much needs to be said for Smith's unmistakable whining voice, hurricane-shock hair, and smeared eyeliner in defining Goth rock, there is a clear reason why The Cure has been the salvation to millions of dour kids everywhere: Smith and Gallup came up with some damn great songs. "A Forest" has long been a favorite for anyone who at one time or another sported a little black lipstick, and one cannot overlook the minimalist pop bleakness of tracks like "Play For Today," "Three," and the title track. Of the rarities on Seventeen Seconds, the most intriguing tracks come from the side project Cult Hero, which produced more punky-pop tracks similar to those heard on Three Imaginary Boys. Along with this, you'll find plenty of live tracks and a couple of studio demo tracks.
I'm not going to lie to you. The Head On The Door was never my (Jim's) favorite Cure record. I'm sure it is for somebody; and that's not to say that The Head On The Door is a bad record. It's just that The Cure's legendary gloom, mope, and dourness was always far more appealing than the jiggly goth-pop of albums such as The Head On The Door and The Top. In looking at the band's history, The Head On The Door is the ultimate transitional record, following what could only be seen as a disaster dressed up as bubblegum pop (i.e. The Top). During the mid '80s, The Cure distanced themselves from the self-destructive behavior which spawned 1982's Pornography and drove Robert Smith to temporarily shelve the band while playing guitar in Siouxsie & The Banshees. Smith et al, decided to re-invent The Cure without the drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. The Head On The Door succeeds where The Top stumbled, but was pretty much just working up to the brilliantly skewered pop and bloodshot kaleidoscope of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and eventually providing the foundation for the band to sell millions of records. Hence The Head On The Door adopted a slightly darkened, pogo-pop catchiness as heard on "In Between Days" and "A Night Like This" with hints of a former gloominess hidden well behind the amazingly silly tunes of "Close To Me" and "Six Different Ways."
As on all of these remastered reissues, Robert Smith has filled an extra disc with demos and live material; and what's nice about this disc is the selection of legitimately rare songs including the demos for a couple of b-sides and possibly four unreleased tracks.
Well, it's about fuckin' time (psst, you know it's a special occasion if it makes Cup swear)! The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys debut album has finally been reissued, just in time to cleanse our ears of the disappointment of their latest album. In comparison to their recent studio-concocted big 'raw' sound, T.I.B. needed no high-tech bells and whistles to effectively convey its gritty immediacy. Yes, it's occasionally clunky and often imperfect, but it's a great snapshot of the band back in its 1979 unpolished adolescence with their bare bones electric guitar, bass, drums and vocals (pre-synthesizer) set-up. In contrast to their playing chops, their songwriting chops were already pretty darn solid. Actually this is the very first time the album has been released in the U.S., and thus begins Rhino Records' resurrection of The Cure's long-yearned-for catalog of seminal albums. Hurrah! If this remastered and expanded edition is any indication, we're in for some pretty great rarities-type surprises. It comes with a big ol' booklet and a 'bonus' disc filled with twenty surprisingly punky demos, outtakes, live tracks and such from back in their formative years -- including a demo version of what is undisputably one of their best pop songs "Boys Don't Cry". Many of the recordings are really really lo-fi and murky, but Robert Smith and Co.'s magic shines through. Cure fans rejoice!
If it weren't for the unmistakable voice of Robert Smith singing, you'd never guess this was The Cure. These songs don't even sound like they came from Smith's songwriting pen. Not at all! They're completely devoid of The Cure's trademark achingly bittersweet sentiments, wonderfully quirky details, and infectious melodies. We probably should have known things were more than a little awry from the first couple of songs. Really, have you ever heard The Cure *this* angry? This is Robert Smith at his most bilious. He's almost yelling his lyrics. Perhaps it's the influence of Ross Robinson (nu-metal rock producer of Korn, Soulfly and Slipknot)? Heck, what else could it be? Perhaps we're just imagining things, but don't song titles such as "(I Don't Know What's Going) On" and "Lost" seem to suggest something very wrong? Odd too is the fact that this incredibly uncharacteristic album should happen to be self-titled. Sad and painful.
The third release from SF's Curium comes in the form of a 3" cd-r encased in a slightly larger gift box. As with the rest of the Dynamophone Parcel series, this is a delight to open up and delve into.
Curium (aka Evan Sornstein aka the man behind the label) draws inspiration from literary works, this time it is C.S. Lewis' fantasy realm Bism which "lies below the Shallows of the Underland below Narnia. Gnomes grow living gems and salamanders swim in rivers of fire giving great words of wisdom" (quoted from the liner notes). While the three instrumentals may not necessarily conjure such fantastical visions in your mind, they will offer a soothing dreamy respite from the hecticness of your day. Diminutive as this 3" may seem, there's twenty minutes of loveliness for you sink into as it drifts slowly through limpid, wistful melodic lines.
Psst, seeking more new calming contemplative sounds on this label? Be sure to check out Abbasi Brothers (also reviewed this week) and Fjordne!
We've got a couple more fine releases from Dynamophone Records, the SF indie label we were raving about last list (also see: Balustrade Ensemble, Halou, Po, Pornopop, A Lily, Disinterested, and R/R Coseboom)!
Sonically it fits perfectly amid the gauzy soundscapey bliss of its labelmates, but Curium's Nowever stands apart from the rest in its defined concept revolving around the poems of e. e. cummings. Various voices recite cummings' words -- some spoken, some sung, some processed, some not. They're sifted through the stuttery glitch-tronic sands of Curium's shifting dreamscape. For fans of Oval, Boards Of Canada, B. Fleishmann and Dntel.
This Las Vegas metalcore outfit returns with part 2 to their previous We May Be Through With The Past... cdep. So you can expect more of their heaviness and clever, oft lengthy song titles -- better'n The Locust, some of 'em. This disc's "Nuclear Waste? Bring That Shit. (We Want A State Full Of Radiated Super Heroes)" really can't be beat. And like the first ep, this is decorated with nifty but fake Chris Ware / Acme Novelty Library artwork ("We hope you never see this travesty of a mockery of a sham" is what they say to him in the liner notes).
After seeing Curlupanddie lurching across the stage, opening for Darkest Hour a while back, I'm a firm fan. And this disc is more evidence of their abilities. They merge Coalesce, Today Is The Day, and black metal while remaining open to a lot of other sorts of experimentation. The fourth of the four songs on here, "God Is In His Heaven, All Is Right With The World" is the kind of thing that will get your housemates coming in and asking, is that the same record you had on a second ago? as it does the metal / post rock hybrid thing that's all the rage with the kids these days while bringing in even weirder elements like sly breakbeat backing and melodic mellow indie-rockisms. Cool. Hopefully they'll never have to join the army (as per song #2: "If This Band Thing Doesn't Pan Out We're Joining The Army").
This six-song ep is the latest cd offering from Las Vegas metalcore act Curlupanddie. Screaming, crushing metalcore a la Converge, Coalesce and old Cave In. A buncha crazy kids who we can always count on for great, A Minor Forest-esque song titles (e.g. "I Don't Give A Shit If I'm In Outer Darkness, I'll Make Friends") and swank graphic design along with their superior metalcore. This disc sports fake Chris Ware artwork (though Chris Ware does gets thanked, so maybe he approved of the, uh, emulation?), which is a bit puzzling. Much like the drum machine weirdness on the disc's final track... Like we said, crazy kids.
MPEG Download: "I Hate Almost Every Person I Come In Contact With" [/audio/curlupanddieihate.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "I Hate Almost Every Person I Come In Contact With" [/audio/curlupanddieihate.m3u]
"A Little Menstrual Night Music" is a remix of Current 93's "In Menstrual Night," a record that has long been thought of as the most oblique of Current 93's pre-folk recordings, dominated by liturgical choral loops and clunking rhythmic couplings of piano and drums. The original album was produced back in 1986, as an exploration of the question of where dreams go when they die; yet this remix, produced by Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter for Current 93's recent San Francisco performances, emphasize the dreaminess of the recordings, having filtered out most of the percussive aspects and allowing only a few vocal snippets from Ruby Wallis and Rose McDowell to emerge from the thick cloud of reverb that swallowed the original. And, the usually omnipresent voice of C93's David Tibet is surprisingly absent in this fantastic piece of sonic hypnogogia.
It's always a challenge to delve into the polyglot mythologies of David Tibet, as the visions in his lyrics reference a host of esoteric subjects: the gnostic Christian texts of the early 2nd Century, Thelemic citations from Aleister Crowley, snippets of Coptic, and plenty of Tibet's feverish dislocations of images delivered in stream of consciousness. The central protagonist here is Aleph, a character with a slippery persona, one that may be acting before God set the universe in order, one that may be acting as a dopplerganger to Adam, one that may be the murderous precursor of Cain, one that may spell out an alternate origin of Lucifer, or one that is unique to Current 93. To avid Current 93 fans, these mysteries and contradictions are commonplace; but the biggest shift for Current 93 is in the musical arrangements. Gone are the fairy-dusted madrigals for just piano, 12-string guitar, and violin. Tibet has now grasped onto a blistering, occasionally sprawling psychedelia centered upon heavy, proto-metal riffs. Amon Duul's Yeti, the psychedelic moments of Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and certainly early Alice Cooper all factor into Current 93's arrangements. Given the '70s laden heaviness of this album, it's a little hard to believe that Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) who had previously collaborated with Tibet isn't present. Instead, Tibet has brought on board Alex Neilson, Andrew WK, Keith Wood, Matt Sweeney, Rickey Lee Jones, James Blackshaw, porn-star Sasha Gray, and a host of others. Once again, Steven Stapleton is at the helm of the production with Andrew Liles adding his deft hand in the mix as well. Alex Neilson's presence on drums is of particular note, as his heavy-handed fills and lumbering gate does away with the taut precision which gave some Current 93 albums an anal retentive quality. Neilson in conjunction with the army of guitarists churning through these heavy, psychedelic riffs makes this album as good as it is.
Current 93's David Tibet is an apocalyptic poet in the truest definition, as his work hinges upon his obsessive desire to transcribe and translate the revelations, visions, nightmares, and dreams that have come to him over the past two decades. The apocalyptic genres of art have come to define the possibilities of how the world as we know it might come to an end (e.g. astrophysical disasters, nuclear war, zombies, fire-ants, etc.); however, in the earliest manifestations of apocalyptic art, it was simply the chronicling of revelations given from the heavens to man below. Throughout his numerous recordings in Current 93, Tibet has embodied the whole apocalyptic tradition, all the while strengthening his admittedly heretical belief in a Patripassianist Christ, who suffers beyond the crucifixion of Jesus throughout the aeons until his second coming (NB. this is but a brief synopsis of Tibet's complicated, Gnostic, and poetic theology).
Black Ships Ate The Sky has been in the works for almost four years, with Tibet's great friend and long-time collaborator Steven Stapleton proclaiming this to be a fantastic recording. Lo and behold, Black Ships Ate The Sky *is* a magnificent album, returning to the somber acid folk stylings haunted by the shadows and smoke last heard on the earlier masterpieces Thunder Perfect Mind and Earth Covers Earth. As on all of the Current 93 albums, Tibet surrounds himself with an impressive battery of musicians that reads like a who's who of alt-folk-avant-rock greats: Will Oldham, Ben Chasny, Antony (as in .. And The Johnsons), Shirley Collins, Cosey Fanni Tutti, William Basinski, Al Cisneros (from Om), and the aforementioned Steven Stapleton. Black Ships Ate The Sky is thematically based upon Tibet's vision aptly described in the title as it relates to a Christian hymn by Charles Wesley called "Idumae" which repeats itself seven times (eight if you count "Black Ships Were Sinking Into Idumae" sung by Cosey Fanni Tutti), as sung by Tibet's numerous guest vocalists. As strong as many of the versions of "Idumae" are, Tibet and his peculiar voice are central to Black Ships. He's impassioned throughout, occasionally possessed with an infernal rage as on the second version of the title track, and elsewhere adopting a gentle delicacy. The music swirls around simple guitar arrangements, laced with Chasny's acidic guitar leads and Stapleton's sidereal productions... and it's stunningly good together. Time will tell if this will be the greatest Current 93 record Tibet has produced (as many have already claimed); but it's clearly in the running.
"In a foreign town, in a foreign land, reaping time has come." Thus spake David Tibet on the 2nd album from his heretically-minded project Current 93. Those words became commonplace within the Current 93 pantheon of poetic allusions toward Tibet's horrifying visions of the end of the world. While his tireless research and spiritual development has found Tibet nowadays with a self-constructed theology that includes elements of Christian doctrine, Coptic Gnosticism, Crowley's magick, Buddhist transcendentalism, and far more esoteric subjects, the apocalyptic visions for Tibet in 1985 were centered firmly between dual, conflicting personalities: Christ and Crowley. These two play out in the Current 93 drama built not upon the taut acoustic folk as found on Tibet's more well known constructions, but through a darkly hallucinatory collage of monastic chanting looped against thudding percussive blows that are less structural and more of a protracted stomp of corporeal punishment. Tibet has always relied upon musical accompaniments for his visionary work, and Dogs Blood Rising is no different as Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound deftly shapes the slashing feedback and growling utterances into a hellish orchestration for Tibet's bellowing not only for the Antichrist but also for the weeping Christ who suffers till the end of time in his own theological reasoning. As commonplace as Tibet's voice is on all of the Current 93 albums, he has recruited a number of guest vocalists, including Steve Ignorant of Crass and Diana Rogerson, serving to de-center the album further. The five disquieting collages of Dogs Blood Rising are totally the stuff of nightmares, long standing as one of the pinnacles of industrial culture. Now back in print on vinyl with reproductions of the original fliers from the first edition of the album, but probably not for long!
Run by the former Deerhoof bassist Rob Fisk, the Free Porcupine Society has specialized in packaging all of their releases in msyterious paper sleeves that he's hand decorated with random paint streaks splattered across silkscreened illustrations of clunky anthropomorphic figures. Musically, the label defines their releases as "no wave hermit folk" and "eco-terrorist hobbit rock," with releases by Tom Carter, Scorces, Xiu Xiu, Badgerlore, and others. So at least when it comes to the music, a reissue of the pagan-folk classic Earth Covers Earth by Current 93 is a logical one. But when it comes to the meticulously construsted imagery of Current 93, the craft-cornered artwork of the Free Porcupine Society is a slightly mismatched pairing. That said, Fisk has certainly adjusted the idosyncratic design style of the FPS in repackaging the original artwork -- with its homage to the Incredible String Band as the cover photo and a plethora of drawings from Current 93's David Tibet. And considering that this is the first time that Earth Covers Earth has been in print for many years, vinyl or otherwise; this is a very welcome reissue.
Originally released in 1988, Earth Covers Earth was the second album in which Tibet ventured down the path of "apocalyptic folk", after numerous records of frightening hallucinations and occultish chants. Languid and mournful, Earth Covers Earth taps into the eccentricities and shadows that haunt the traditions of British folk music, best typified in the work of Shirley Collins and the soundtrack to the Wicker Man. Tibet's own fascination with Christian Gnosticism (at the time, a fascination just in its infancy) and his ability to surround himself with very talented musicians provided an exceptional framework for this Earth Covers Earth, which ranks as one of the most well developed albums of Current 93's death-folk facade. Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Douglas P (Death In June) provided the melancholic acoustic guitar strum, while Rose MacDowell occasionally delivers her creepy sing-song vocals alongside the ubiqitous Tibet waxing poetic about the existential collapse around him. There are reasons why Current 93 has such an iconic status, and Earth Covers Earth is one of them.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With their two recent collaborations with horror novelist Thomas Ligotti, Current 93 has made a few detours from their magickal folk music to get back to the style of apocalyptic collage which marked their first and best records. "Faust" is another return to those terror-filled dadaist sonic assemblages, and like those Ligotti-inspired recordings, it is based on a literary text. This interpretation of "Faust" was written by the decadent Count Eric Stenbock at the end of the 19th Century. In working with texts other than his own, Current 93's ringleader David Tibet tends to keep his voice and ego out of the process. Rather, Tibet & Stapleton have collaborated to build mostly instrumental creepy hypnotic drones. "Faust" is 35 minute piece composed of the constant chatter of voices muttering, chanting, and whispering with a lulling rhythmic plod of heavy chimes. It is as if one is eavesdropping on some Crowleian incantation. Evil stuff.
As anyone with even a passing interest in the catalogue of Current 93 can attest, David Tibet's visionary poetry has always been a central facet to his work. The lyrics have gradually become more and more enmeshed into his deeper personal studies into the mythologies surrounding the Christian apocalypse, the various heresies involving Gnosticism and Patipatrianism, the texts of Crowley and other practitioners of the dark arts, and more recently, the ancient texts of Coptic Christians. The resulting imagery has become all the more convoluted beyond the pitting of Christ and Satan in existential conflict over the fate of the world. A brief bit of marketing states Honeysuckle Aeons to be "dreams of the crucifixion with Christ and two thieves ascending" and, we'll have to take Tibet at his word that all of his lyrical content is in someway revolving around this concept. Musically, Honeysuckle Aeons is a typically solemn affair, with the arrangements hedging towards the sparse end of the C93 spectrum (especially Soft Black Stars). The use of Theremin throughout the album is a novel one, interlocked with the delicate Satie-like notes on the piano from Baby Dee. We have to admit being much more partial to the heavier, darker, and / or more psychedelic incarnations of the C93 sound (e.g. Dogs Blood Rising, Thunder Perfect Mind, Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain, etc.), but here the Theremin-laced arrangements put all of the focus on Tibet's esoteric word (which is often "honeysuckle", he says that a lot here) and thought.
Over the past decade or so, Current 93 has steadily simplified their arrangements, moving from an impassioned psychedelic death-folk to a delicately scored sound for piano, guitar, violin, and the occasional tape loop. This transition obviously has focused the attention of Current 93 upon David Tibet, his voice, and his lyrics which become even more pronounced during their live performances. How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon is a double disc set of the two Toronto performances that Current 93 delivered in June 2004, and showcase the radical simplicity of Current 93's music set against the complexities of Tibet's mythological revelations. For these performances, Tibet brought on board Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Simon Finn along with Michael Cashmore, John Contreras, and Graham Jeffery. Many of the tracks from these two sets return to earlier work by Current 93, with a number of tracks from Earth Covers Earth and Thunder Perfect Mind, as well as revisitation of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape," which David Tibet wrote for both Current 93 and Death In June back in the mid-'80s. Unfortunately, there's no tracklisting for these two performances, although if you need to know a quick Google search will solve this dilemna. Regardless, these live performances are immaculated played, very well recorded, and certainly reflect the overall aesthetic of Current 93, making this a worthwhile document for all C93 fans.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ah, to be scared by Current 93 is a very good thing. The last time Tibet and co. put aside their trademarked renaissance faire folk was with their first collaboration with Lovecraftian horror novelist Thomas Ligotti. "I Have A Special Plan..." is the second collaboration between C93 and Ligotti to spine tingling results. Tibet recites a story written by Ligotti just for this release with Stapleton and Christoph Heemann providing the creepy droning and mutations on Tibet's voice. The only fault is the length, a short 22 minutes.
Current 93's epic Inmost Light Trilogy had originally been issued back in the mid-'90s as three separate releases, with the two short program discs Where The Long Shadows Fall and The Stars Are Marching Sadly Home bracketing the full length album All The Pretty Little Horses. But through a tragic turn of events that has been recounted here and many other places, the distribution company that released those discs went out of business, rendering this (and pretty much the entire Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Coil, and Sol Invictus back catalogues) out of print. Fortunately, a hearty few have lovingly reissued much of that material, Jnana being one of those labels; and it's Jnana who has thoughtfully reissued what David Tibet exclaimed as his "Hallucinatory Patripassianist Song" as a triple cd set.
Where The Long Shadows Fall opens with a stately loop of a beautifully sad / eternally holy female choral melody, obviously taken from an old piece of vinyl as the crackle and hiss of the surface noise provides a familiar antiquated patina. Additional baroque vocal melodies intertwine with a chiming 12-string acoustic guitar strum which slowly progresses with the plod of a heavy doom track, minus the downtuned distortion; and then of course, there's David Tibet reciting his trademarked revelations surrounding his heretical beliefs about Christ, Satan, and the end of the world as we know it. Where The Long Shadows Fall is an open ended piece, built upon illusion and impression. For the elegantly mangled nursery rhymes that Current 93 is known for, look to the second disc All The Pretty Little Horses. Here, David Tibet conducts business mostly as a duet with the acoustic guitar of Michael Cashmore, who has done more to define Tibet's apocalyptic take on British folk than any other guitarist (including Ben Chasny, Tony Wakeford, Douglas P, etc.). These tunes are sparsely arranged with occasional flourishes of electronic manipulation and baroque instrumentation. Along with Cashmore, other noteworthy guest appearance include Nick Cave and Shirley Collins.
The final disc The Stars Are Marching Sadly Home is one of the darker recordings that Current 93 has made since Tibet abandoned the dirge collages of tape loops and cackling voice which dominated his very first recordings. That same vocal loop which opens Where The Long Shadows Fall is the backbone to this atmospheric work, although it has been shrouded in reverb and pushed into the background of whispering drones and shadowy sounds. Tibet's voice growls with the aid of plenty of timestretched tricks that perfectly augment Tibet's already creepy voice.
If you didn't have the opportunity to pick these up when they originally came out, you really should now, and spend some time with these recordings as they have clearly aged well over the past decade and stand amongst the best of the Current 93 recordings.
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You have to respect David Tibet for never wavering from the path that he started down some 15 years ago with his "apocalyptic folk and mentrual minstrals." Recently there hasn't been much malevolence in Current 93's vocabulary as of late, but it still retains the folkish minstral element. With tremolo guitar, harmonium, bass, and "the world" - as credited to Steven Stapleton - Current 93 follows several meandering signatures that solemnly march at the pace of a funereal dirge. Any musically implied gloom is quickly eradicated by Tibet's running narrative of arcane hopefulness. "Sleep Has His House" is not as anally retentive as "Soft Black Stars" and therefore a bit more enjoyable, but its still nowhere nearly as good as the bad-acid trip collages of "Blood Dogs Rising."
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While Steven Stapleton and Christoph Heemann are respectively credited for performing "whirl" and "swirl" on this Current 93 album, their presence is hardly felt as David Tibet concentrates on the untreated melancholic piano and his ghastly allegories of the end of the world.
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Here is the necessary reissue of Current 93's masterpieces Swastikas For Noddy and Crooked Crosses For The Nodding God - two albums that solidified the apocalyptic folk songwriting for David Tibet and company. At the time, Tibet's sergeant-at-arms was Douglas P of Death In June with the ghostly presence of Steven Stapleton felt through sporadically through the mix; and a rather large cast of characters involved in making what are minimal neofolk albums. Swastikas For Noddy at the time of release in 1988 was quipped as "the pop album" for Current 93. Compared to the Crowleyian chants and nightmarish bricolage of Nature Unveiled and Dogs Blood , this would certainly ring true; but in the light of the entire C93 oeuvre, Swastikas For Noddy is a feral scrabbling of the more baroque orchestrations and arrangements that Tibet would coax out of his musical troupe. Noddy is a British children's character from the mid-century and in the fluid pantheon of godheads that Tibet worked into his cryptic poetry and revelations, Noddy had become a semi-deity which he figured into a canon of his own making alongside Christ, Crowley, and Lucifer. It's an absurd declaration; and the whimsy that Current 93 can muster in such jaunty numbers as "Beau Soleil" and "Hey Ho The Noddy Oh" acquire a sinister irony to them. Current 93 offers their version of "Oh Coal Black Smith" which had been a British folk staple dating back to the early 19th Century under the title "The Two Magicians", matching Current 93's then infatuation of Comus with the wild-eyed psych-folk mania and urgent, two-note acoustic guitar strum alongside Tibet's feral vocals. Crooked Crosses For The Nodding God is an album that originally came out in 1989 on Stapleton's United Dairies, as remixed, restructured, and rerecorded versions of many of the songs that went into Swastikas For Noddy. These versions are much more skewed, demented, and psychedelic, showing much more of Stapleton's penchant for dislocating the minimal folk arrangements and singsong tunes with warped effects, drones, cloak and dagger. Included here is a version of Current 93's "Looney Runes" with its glam-goth guitar riff and early Alice Cooper vibe, amidst Tibet's freakish chanting. It makes perfect sense to bind these two albums together, with the latter as the lysergic mind-fuck version of the former.
During a recent illness, David Tibet had one of his earthmoving visions in which he was told to summarize his life's work in a singular recording. The powers that be instructed him that this life summary was to be a densely layered collage of all of his recordings as Current 93 and with Steven Stapleton all piled on top of each other. When Tibet recovered from his sickness, he and
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The 1991 companion release to a Nurse With Wound album of the same name, "Thunder Perfect Mind" is a stately album of C93's bleak reinterpretations of occultish '60s UK folk. Joined by The Bevis Frond's Nick Soloman on a few tracks along with other guests including Shirley Collins, this rather sorrowful sounding album from Current 93 has a definitively psychedelic overtone to it. One of the recommended Current 93 releases, now newly reissued and remastered in a fancy double cd digipack format -- the extra disc consisting of different live/studio versions of songs from the album proper.
Both Steven Stapleton and David Tibet have been working on each others albums almost since the inceptions of both Nurse With Wound and Current 93, and the two of them have collaborated as equals on a few Stapleton / Tibet albums. But both Tibet and Stapleton
Somehow this collaboration has reawakened the nightmare culture which both ensembles propagated during the beginnings of Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, so you'll find less of the anally retentive folk stylings which have populated Current 93 and less of the smug weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weirdness from the last couple of Nurse With Wound albums. Michael Cashmore -- Tibet's favorite guitarist to play on the Current 93 albums -- does make a few appearances, offering more of a high-lonesome sound of big single plucked strings than his normal 12-string affair. Behind these solitary notes, Stapleton gradually builds a sublime collage of slashing noises, mechanical vocal loops, and generalized ominous atmospheres which is very reminiscent of his work on C93's "Dogs Blood Rising" and NWW's "Homotopy For Marie." Tibet, of course, offers an bleak recitation of one of his prophetic revelations. As in C93's previous "The Great And The Small," Tibet's inspiration comes from the near-death experience he encountered after his appendix burst and went gangrenous. However, unlike "The Great And The Small," "Bright Yellow Moon" comes much closer to explaining Tibet's horrors.
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Cool. A super-limited 7" release from San Francisco's no-wave noise militants, Curse Of The Birthmark. Three hundred and thirty three of these were put out, as part of a 7" series from 333 Recordings. Features Weasel Walter from Flying Luttenbachers on keys.
We've been hearing about these guys for a while now, often mentioned in the same breath as other hyped underground groups like Natural Snow Buildings, King Kong Ding Dong, Barn Owl, etc. But this is the first time we've actually heard them, and we have to say it does live up to the hype. Although in many ways it reminds us way more of the Finnish forest folk(s), sort of abstract, meandery, a little clattery, spacious and skeletal, haunting and otherworldly. Another record it reminds us of a little bit is Smog's Julius Caesar, although this is way more abstract and deconstructed, but it has the same sort of barebones lo-fi songsmithery. The guitars creak and groan, the vocals are moaned and crooned, effects swirl, flutes flutter, all spread out in a slow shifting, dreamily drifting psych folk, that should definitely appeal to fans of Six Organs, Avarus, Steven R Smith and the like. But Cursillistas can be dark and noisy too, some of the songs building to sinister climaxes, plenty of careening FX, some WAY up in the mix, while others continue on lilting gently, vocals always distorted, but they still creak and crack with emotion, hand drums crank out tribal rhythms, bells chime, everything hazy and washed out and dreamy. A few tracks get all back porchy and twangy, reminding us of Red Red Meat or Souled American, while others get all droned out and effects drenched, twisting tangled stretches of overlapping tones, tweaked effects, garbled vox, and blurred melodies.
Beautiful hand screened sleeves, with printed vellum inserts. NICE.
Still holding down the emo wing of the Saddle Creek label is Cursive, and here is their new two song ep. Their inclusion of strings and horns with their basic punk rock assembly of guitar, bass and drums adds a wonderful dimension to Cursive. We caught a glimpse of this expanded instrumentation on their last release which was a split cd with Japan's Eastern Youth. It really works well! Increasing the dramatics of their already heavily emotive and dynamic music. An exciting peek at what's to come on their new full length due out soon.
It simply doesn't get much more emo than this. Capital E! M! O!
Cursive come tearing out of the gate with the tumultuous opening number "Opening The Hymnal / Babies". They follow it with the vibrant, fiery "Dorothy At Forty", and we thought to ourselves, "Geez, this is great! If they keep going the way they're going, holy shit, this is gonna be a doozy!" And they do and it is! They've always crafted their music with more drama and dynamics than most of their emo contemporaries, but while they've certainly retained their very emo core, this is Cursive at perhaps their most varied and their least aggressive (tho' there's still an occasional gritty moment here and there). Happy Hollow is both more angular'n'skronky (yes, there are saxophones and trumpets!) and more Brit-poppy than previous Cursive releases. So it's not surprising that as a result they kinda end up sounding less like the Cursive of old, drawing comparisons to a number of other faves of AQ with whom you're probably already familiar. For instance, "So-So Gigolo" drives with a very Queens Of The Stone Age-y propulsion. "Bad Science" sounds like a latter day Cure song. The abovementioned second song and "Rise Up! Rise Up!" bring to mind the feverishness of Doug Martsch's pre-Built To Spill band Treepeople. Pretty darn great!
Hmmm, maybe the difference between houses and homes is that someone cares enough to do the housekeeping... which is what emo-punk band Cursive have done with six years worth of their recorded output. Out of print singles? Previously unreleased tracks? You bet! Cursive and their label Saddle Creek want you to have them all, right now on this Cursive collection! The cd starts and ends with their two unavailable-until-now songs "Dispenser" and "I Thought There'd Be More Than This". Sandwiched in between are ten tunes drawn from four of their 7"s -- The Disruption (1996), Sucker & Dry (1997), The Icebreaker (1998), and Makoto Split Series (2001).
All in all, the selections serve as a solid overview of the band's evolution from precarious abrasive angst boys to slightly more reined-in moody lads. Includes a 24 page booklet in which you'll find a story written by Tim Kasher and illustrated by Yuriko Yoshino (of Cursive pals Japanese punk rock band Eastern Youth).
In just three songs, this ep shows off a few different shades of Cursive. You may recall the title track from their last album 2003's The Ugly Organ -- very reminiscent of Built To Spill and Modest Mouse. The second song "Once" is angst filled and churning and the third "Adapt" is a slow swooning number with handwringing strings.
The title is a definite sign of what to expect from Cursive's new album. There's organs a-plenty, but whether they're specifically "ugly" is up for debate. There's also angstful emo a-plenty too as only Cursive can do. Particularly with their most recent releases, they've been adding more and more dimensions to the straight-up emo punk rock guitar sound. Andee and Cup both loved the Art Is Hard ep that preceded The Ugly Organ, and this full length sure doesn't disappoint either. Once again, the big Cursive picture has been fleshed out with some cello, layers of vocals and the aforementioned organs. It's quite wonderful and dramatic, really - at once, emotionally charged, well composed, quirkily detailed and yes, very rocking too.
An international punk rock mini-fest, this split release features four tunes each from Japanese trio Eastern Youth and Omaha, NE emo-punk boys Cursive. Consider this your preparation for their imminent U.S. tour together. Eastern Youth fares best when vocalist Hisashi Yoshino totally cuts loose - which in my opinion, he doesn't do hardly enough on these songs - 'cause when he's singing in a calmer fashion the songs tend to drag and stumble (although at times it sort of reminded me of Shudder To Think). I've noticed a prevalent and very distinct sound in the Japanese punk rock recordings I've heard to date (particularly noticeable in the guitar tone). The individual instruments/musicians sound isolated from one another. Clean and somewhat sterile, like the music production on Japanese tv variety shows. Made me think - sizeable budgets but lacking in a unified rockin' energy. Their live rage just fails to come across consistently in the recorded realm. As for Cursive, they've seldom let their fans down, and they're not gonna start now. Tim Kasher's raw, angstful voice is primed and ready as they kick out four new songs of angular punk rock aggression made even more moody by the relatively recent, highly complementary addition of cello to their standard guitar/bass/drums lineup.
This album from Cursor Miner (aka Robert Tubb) is a darn sonic rollercoaster ride. A super fun and eclectic album, it starts out with an ominous 40 second digital roar, then proceeds into a Beck-ish slouchy, loping fashion which mutates into more stuttery electronics and bumpity-bump programmed beats like Hrvatski or Kid 606. All chopped up, chunky and playful with a definite pop heart, it blends together acoustic guitars, rubbery blumps and bleeps, samples and processed vocals. Cool.
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In case the title didn't already give it away, this is part of the German label TomLab's special 7" single series dedicated to the alphabet! It all began with Mark Robinson and the letter 'A' back in July 2004. Now it's mid-2006 and they've reached the letter 'N', but don't punish yourself if you've missed a few (if not or all) of 'em thus far. Each edition has only been pressed in a super fleeting run of 500. Geez, you can barely catch a glimpse of them. 'M' by Max Tundra and 'L' by Les Georges Leningrad (which came out in May and March of this year respectively) are already long gone. Sooooo, while it lasts we have 'N' which features two tunes by SF art-popsters The Curtains (aka Deerhoof's Chris Cohen). Snooze and lose...
