Union
Chapel, London, Sat 8th Feb
”He
can open the seals because he wrote the code.”
Those
new to the often arcane world of Current 93 may wish to start by perusing this list of influences. As it ranges from Dostoyevsky to
the Bee Gees, picking up anarcho-punksters Crass and deep-sea fish
along the way, it's possible you will find it overwhelming rather
than useful. But then that overwhelming sense is
what's useful where Current 93 are concerned. Others may prefer to
consult my unauthorised, sketchy and highly subjective potted history, posted the last time I saw them.
However
much I enjoyed my previous sighting, the salubrious Union Chapel made
for a far more appropriate venue than the halls of the South Bank
Centre. Cups of coffee replaced beers, and CDs and LPs (yes they
still trade in LPs!) were stuffed in the slots normally reserved for
hymn books. (Not that these surroundings held back lyrics about doing
speed, and such like.) From the off, this wasn't going to be one of
your regular gigs.
When
talking about Current 93, words have a habit of giving up on you. You
may want to bear that in mind with what follows...
They're
one of those 'bands' that are at root an individual – David Tibet,
plus his somewhat unhinged visionary mindset and whatever compatriots
he's gathered to convey it this time. Which gives things great scope
for reinvention, something he audaciously employed by turning the
whole main part of the gig over to the latest release,'I Am
The Last of All the Field That Fell', performed in track
order. (Which we are encouraged to see as a whole cloth, a suite of
songs, rather than a collection of tracks. The band seemed intent on
playing the whole thing through, with audience applause only
occasionally breaking in, as if through cracks in the music. And
while the CD does have a track list, this is tucked away inside the
lyric booklet.)
And
while as ever I'm behind on releases, it sounds some way indeed from
the last thing I have heard – the mighty, pounding doom metal of
2009's 'Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain'. In fact,
the nine-piece band seemed some way not just from those long-gone
industrial roots but from their more general haunts of rock and folk.
Much of the music had a timeless quality you couldn't pin to any era.
Suited and hatted, Tibet could even have been a crooner from some
alternate history – John the Baptist meets Tony Bennett.
It's
difficult to pin their music, even down to whether they're dealing in
songs or tracks. They sometimes sounded like a jazz cabaret act
double-booked with a left-field experimental troupe, yet somehow
always magically able to combine their efforts. Rich melodies and
sonic adventures somehow combined. Though they employ electronics,
it's cool the way the more left field sections don't confine
themselves to those. There's puffs on the sax, for example, that
sound more like something you'd encounter on a free impro night. The
hurdy-gurdy is reclaimed from folksiness into the source of
strangeness it always was. My best analogy for their sound would be
a schooner. Numbers set out piano-driven, proceeding at a stately
pace. The rhythm section kicking in is like the point the sailboat
picks up a current and surges forward. After which it's all
exploration.
Tibet's
vocals are perhaps akin to Dylan's drawl, not least in inducing a
Marmite reaction. It's a taste I've acquired, but I can understand
those who call it an acquired taste. This was the first time I'd
heard him employ a backing vocalist (Bobbie Watson), and I was
curious how his voice might sound when placed against another. Would
it just expose his limitations in singing? In the event they proved
one of the night's highlights, at its best when the backing vocals
shadowed his rather than supplying harmonies. Joseph Burnett of the Quietus would seem to agree, writing
“Watson's contribution is by far the most
exciting, her eerie high notes winding around Tibet's more nasal
tones to lend an almost mystical edge to proceedings.”
John
Peel famously said of the Fall, “they are always different, they
are always the same”. A quote I've already appropriated for Swans, but it equally
applies to Current 93. However much their style varies, the themes
and mood always remain. Though almost always trading in apocalypse,
they revel in the double meaning of the term as both destruction and
revelation. (I suspect Tibet would be sympathetic to this
Alan Moore quote.) With Tibet's passioned, frenzied and
barely decipherable torrents of imagery, they don't just induce a
fugue state – you come to the sense that you're feeling everything
you could possibly feel, all at once.
Then
for the encore they became almost a different outfit. Tibet had said
not one word to the audience through the main set, appearing
preoccupied. After which he became the garrulous figure from the
earlier South Bank show. (“My mother says I go on too much,” he
confessed.) The rockiness returned to the band, with crowd favourites
served up with a wall-of-noise sound. 'Black Ships Ate the
Sky', which has always previously reminded me of Hawkwind,
came closer to Faust – an intense, metronomic grind, as if built
around drilling the concept into your skull.
After
which I hurriedly furnished myself with the new CD and a tube
station, in that order. I am barely competent to tell you what Tibet
does, and would be clueless as to how he does it. But I am indeed
glad that he does. If this first gig of the year is setting the
standard, the bounty should be rich indeed.
This
one justifies two clips if anything does. Two tracks from the new
album...
...then
that afore-mentioned new version of 'Black Ships'...
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