Current 93 - HoneySuckle Aeons [Coptic Cat - 2011]It’s not been a good 18 months for David Tibet. Less than a year after Baastorm Sing Omega, an album which chronicled the turbulent months during the breakup of his marriage to Andria Degens we have here an even more stripped down and melancholic collection of songs dedicated to the memory of Sebastian Horsley and Peter Christopherson. The first thing to strikes you is the sparse arrangements. Compared to Baastorm and certainly relative to Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain the world’s most exciting Hallucinatory Gnostic Supergroup have adopted a pallet of introspection and minimalism not heard since the days of Soft Black Stars or Sleep has his House. Of particular note is the cosmic (if that’s the phrase) theremin of Armen Ra, the presence of which lends an atmosphere both quaint but strangely affecting. The desolate sine waves under reverb and delay render Tibet’s poetry centre stage highlighting images of Master Black Dogs, the Dedred sea and grimoires a plenty. The melancholic hopefulness that punctuated Baastorm is now utterly gone, best represented by the artwork that accompanies the album. The polyphony of color that adorned the previous album’s sleeve is now reduced to a stark black and white landscape showing crosses atop hills, and swarms of sperm like comet forms invading a darkened sky. Baby Dee plays simple repetitions of chords on Pomegranate which recalls the best moments of Soft Black Stars, again featuring the infinite pure tone of Armen Ra’s theremin. Tibet recently completed a Masters degree in Coptic which required him to spend some time in Egypt. Along with that ancient script he has also seems to have picked up a taste for Middle Eastern instrumentation demonstrated by Eliot Bates’ Oud and Bendir. The Bendir being a drum which has its origins in the days of ancient Egypt itself. These instruments blend superbly with Baby Dee’s church organ on Cuckoo. Tibet’s classic themes of apocalypse and revelation are in full evidence here as he “dodged Gog, but marked Magog out” and also gets involved with something called Katasonic Parangelic? Answers on a postcard. Lyrically the album is that mix of references from Greek, Middle Eastern and Christian mythology filtered through Tibet’s own personal mythology which has been ever present from Black Ships Ate the Sky. There is something to be said for his range of references and melting pot of influences (assuming you don’t subscribe to the allegation of post-modern cultural relativism) but I can’t help missing the raw personal touch of his poetry on Soft Black Stars or Sleep has his House. Minus the religious obscurantism Tibet is wrestling with many of the issues that affect men in mid-life, uncertainty, relationship breakdown, the gradual diminishing of libido and the death of loved ones. Does the heaping of ever more pan-cultural references into the mix help or hinder the function of music to speak this everyday truth? That’s another question entirely. Perhaps the best moments of HoneySuckle Aeons come in the last few tracks where Baby Dee’s church organ takes centre stage framing the lyrics as if Tibet were leading the congregation in..in what? Eulogy for departed friends? lost lovers? lost youth? Recall the pictures of Tibet as a child that adorned Baastorm Sing Omega, whereas here we have only the three crosses that bore Christ and the two thieves. On Planet, the penultimate song Tibet sings: Near twilight half-lit the new god grows, claws at play, and moves on to Rome. The star on the hip of the beautiful mother perfect as Planets. Perfect as the small mouse in corn. Perfect as the kiss of Queendom On the hills by the hills at the hills. Heavy with dew and kindness and mixed with the legends of stars. Old themes of the great in the small are here revisitied and along with them the chance of rebirth, renewal and acceptance of finitude. To me this constitutes a return of sorts for Current 93. Away from the prophetic bombast of their last ten years and back to the understated melancholy and existential themes of Thunder Perfect Mind and The Inmost Light trilogy. Twenty years ago Tibet sang "We are all dust", HoneySuckle Aeons is in some respects a return to dust, and a welcome one at that. Duncan Simpson
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