ALBUM REVIEWS

Current 93
ALEPH AT HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN
COPTIC CAT 18.5.09
@www.vanguard-online.co.uk


This month I seem to have been furnished with a whole bunch of stuff released through the persistently esoteric Southern Records. First up is this new long player from Current 93 - I’ve heard of this lot before, but never actually heard anything by them. Although many collaborators get involved on their albums (including the likes of Andrew W.K., Rickie Lee Jones and most bizarrely porn star Sasha Grey on this one) the only constant throughout their 26 year career is mainstay David Tibet.

So I didn’t quite know what to expect when first playing this album, but I certainly didn’t expect to be greeted with the towering levels of pretension on offer. On reflection the album title alone should have been a major clue. The sound basically consists of intense and brooding guitar atmospherics and Tibet’s nihilistic spoken-word style vocal delivery. In parallel with the album name there are pompous and conceited song titles aplenty such as ‘Invocation of Almost’, ‘Aleph is the Butterfly Net’ and ‘Not Because the Fox Barks’. The words delivered by Tibet are not so much lyrics as pieces of bleak nonsensical prose – chock full of eerie imagery and gloomy mysticism. It’s along the lines of the subject material proffered by Julian Cope - the King Druid himself, but less chirpy and not accompanied by cracking pop hooks.

The press blurb with this album has snippets of some other highly fawning reviews; all proclaiming Tibet’s pioneering genius. But I can’t even describe this album as being merely good or bad – I just find it simply unlistenable. I felt a slight pang of guilt for not getting involved and I gave it another spin for the sake of maintaining reviewer integrity. The angel on my right shoulder kept trying to convince me -cooing ‘Come on, give this is a chance….it’s innovative, challenging and pushing the boundaries of conventional music.’ The devil on my other shoulder scoffed haughtily and said ‘What…are you mad? This sounds like ‘Stonehenge’ by Spinal Tap but not as funny.’

Steve Claire

www.myspace.com/Current93