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CURRENT 93, "HOW HE LOVED THE MOON"
With last year's limited concert EPs on Jnana Records and this year's How He Loved the Moon,Current 93 makes the first tentative steps outside the World SerpentDistribution umbrella that Durtro has labored under for so many years. Moon is a double LP containing nearly 80 minutes of music, a reissue and expansion of last year's Anomalous release A Little Menstrual Night Music, containing four sidelong remixes of vintage Current 93 album In Menstrual Nightundertaken by Steven Stapleton, originally commissioned as openingmusic for a pair of Current 93 shows in San Francisco.Beta-Lactam Ring
Though conceivedand recorded well before the tragic events of last November, inretrospect the album has been dedicated in memory of the dearlydeparted friend and collaborator, subtitled Moonsongs for Jhonn Balance.Beta-Lactam Ring have outdone themselves with this release, a deluxedouble-gatefold package with colorized versions of the original sleeveart from the 1986 Mentrual LP (never noticed that giant purplephallus), as well as a beautiful bonus silkscreened picture 7"containing edited versions of the original two mixes, included withinitial pressings of the album. The glossy, colorful sleeves set a newstandard for Beta-Lactam releases, and the heavy, substantial vinylshould satisfy any serious collector. Here's hoping for more deluxeeditions of hard-to-find Current 93 back catalog material given thistreatment. The music on How He Loved the Moon is a tangentialreturn to an earlier Current 93, when the name stood primarily forlong-form, dark ambient noisescapes; multilayered cacophonies composedof dusty drones and spooky tapes loops of rattling chains anddisembodied whispers. Each sidelong track is named after a chapter andverse of the Bible. "Ecclesiastes XII:2" ("While the sun or the moon orthe stars be not darkened") mixes the source material into a series ofsubterranean, reverberating arterial tunnels in which all of theoriginal elements become nebulous and subliminal. On the flip side,"The Song of Solomon VI:10" ("Who is she, fair as the moon, clear asthe sun, and terrible as an army with banners") transforms the materialinto a slowly percolating dubby rhythmscape, with submerged samplesbubbling to the surface and a persistent megaphone voice intoningtantalizingly inaudible imperatives. "Psalm VIII:3" ("When I considerthe heavens, the moon and the stars which you have put in place") isthe most haunting, with voices obscured behind layers of murky silence,each muffled reverberation reduced to metallic alien syllables divorcedfrom all linguistic sense. For those who have steered clear of Current93 for all these years because of the increasing emphasis on DavidTibet's spoken-word poetic cycles, How He Loved the Moonrepresents a satisfying return to the early, atmospheric C93 thatreally just wanted to scare the hell out of you. For others, this albumwill seem like yet another superfluous stopgap on the path to thebrand-new studio album, due later this year. For myself, I quiteenjoyed this atavistic salute to lunar concerns, and could practicallyimbibe the exudations of magickally charged menstruum, reinvigoratingme with adumbrations of the hidden nightside aeon.
Though conceivedand recorded well before the tragic events of last November, inretrospect the album has been dedicated in memory of the dearlydeparted friend and collaborator, subtitled Moonsongs for Jhonn Balance.Beta-Lactam Ring have outdone themselves with this release, a deluxedouble-gatefold package with colorized versions of the original sleeveart from the 1986 Mentrual LP (never noticed that giant purplephallus), as well as a beautiful bonus silkscreened picture 7"containing edited versions of the original two mixes, included withinitial pressings of the album. The glossy, colorful sleeves set a newstandard for Beta-Lactam releases, and the heavy, substantial vinylshould satisfy any serious collector. Here's hoping for more deluxeeditions of hard-to-find Current 93 back catalog material given thistreatment. The music on How He Loved the Moon is a tangentialreturn to an earlier Current 93, when the name stood primarily forlong-form, dark ambient noisescapes; multilayered cacophonies composedof dusty drones and spooky tapes loops of rattling chains anddisembodied whispers. Each sidelong track is named after a chapter andverse of the Bible. "Ecclesiastes XII:2" ("While the sun or the moon orthe stars be not darkened") mixes the source material into a series ofsubterranean, reverberating arterial tunnels in which all of theoriginal elements become nebulous and subliminal. On the flip side,"The Song of Solomon VI:10" ("Who is she, fair as the moon, clear asthe sun, and terrible as an army with banners") transforms the materialinto a slowly percolating dubby rhythmscape, with submerged samplesbubbling to the surface and a persistent megaphone voice intoningtantalizingly inaudible imperatives. "Psalm VIII:3" ("When I considerthe heavens, the moon and the stars which you have put in place") isthe most haunting, with voices obscured behind layers of murky silence,each muffled reverberation reduced to metallic alien syllables divorcedfrom all linguistic sense. For those who have steered clear of Current93 for all these years because of the increasing emphasis on DavidTibet's spoken-word poetic cycles, How He Loved the Moonrepresents a satisfying return to the early, atmospheric C93 thatreally just wanted to scare the hell out of you. For others, this albumwill seem like yet another superfluous stopgap on the path to thebrand-new studio album, due later this year. For myself, I quiteenjoyed this atavistic salute to lunar concerns, and could practicallyimbibe the exudations of magickally charged menstruum, reinvigoratingme with adumbrations of the hidden nightside aeon.
