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Current 93
Option Magazine September/October 1987


Current 93 was formed in 1982 by David Tibet, John Balance and Fritz Haaman. At the time, Tibet and Balance were members of Psychic TV and Haaman was in 23 Skidoo, both bands being offshoots of the influential Throbbing Gristle. Since then Current 93 has released about six albums and mini-albums, appeared on numerous compilations, and has been a noticeable influence on many sub-underground bands. Musically, they concoct a sort of post-apocalyptic version of monk-like chanting, using digital delays, tape loops and keyboards (among other instrumentation) coupled with religious imagery from Christianity and Buddhism to create a vision of the world that is sometimes beautiful, sometimes inverted, and often disturbing. Fragments of music or chanting blend together, blurring the distinction between voices and electronics; and appearing, vanishing, then re-emerging in changed form, are used to create an atmosphere like that of a "waking dream". Current 93's art (and for once the word applies) has been widely misinterpreted, but for those who listen, a unique sort of beauty emerges - not to mention considerable creativity and craftmanship.

Current 93 represents on facet of an extraordinarily creative and prolific set of English musicians who play in each other's groups and appear on each other's records. In an era when most musical genres are overwhelmed by second and third generation clones, Current 93 and their companion groups (such as Nurse With Wound and Coil) are creating new genres. Group leader David Tibet lives in London, where I contacted him for this interview.

Who is in Current 93 right now?

The line-up has always been me and Steve Stapleton from Nurse With Wound. At the moment it's me and Steve, Douglas P. from Death In June and John Balance from Coil. And working frequently with us but not always, because of other commitments, Rose McDowall of Strawberry Switchblade and Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, formerly of Psychic TV.

Was there any paricular philosophical construct behind the forming of the group?

At the time of our inception, all three of us were very interested in Aleister Crowley. I was a member of Ordo Templi Orientis, which is a magical organization headed some years ago by Crowley and which continued after his death. So, at first we were dealing with Crowleian ideas, specifically with the Cabala, more specifically with the reverse side of the Tree of Life - with negative power impulses. Whether it works or not, and whether any of that exists, is up to people to decide for themselves. Personally now, I've got no interest whatsoever in magical dead-ends, in Crowleiana, in Cabala, or in any other magical practice or philosophy. All a total waste of time. So for all those people who tink we've something to do with hating Christ, or hating God, or being Satanists, they should all go fuck off. Ha!

But religious and spiritual imagery play an important part in your music.

The important thing is we're not a didactic group. We're not telling people what are vaild ideas, what aren't valid ideas, what to believe and think - unlike some groups. The music should move people. The images are there to create an effect of emotion on a grand scale, to be apocalyptic in feel. Those are things that excite me - major movements, surges of history. Some people say we use Christian imagery that is warped or inverted. Well, it may be warped or inverted, but that isn't making a statement about my beliefs, it means that the imagery, if used as such, creates a mor powerful effect. This would probably differ from Steve Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound) who would say that his music is very, um, scientific, almost technically worked out. I once told Steve that I found Nurse's music immensely powerful in a magical sense - magical in its broadest sense - i.e., it had a power more than the sum of its composite parts. Steve disagreed and went into a monologue about how it was totally clinical, totally clinical!

What effects are you trying to create with you music?

The music I've always loved is not just music that's intelligently crafted or with important lyrics, but also something that gives you a chill up the spine. What I find most appealing - Tibetan music, Grogorian chants, Armenian chants of the Middle Ages - is that they not only sound superb, sound powerful, but they also make you question how it is that such an emotional effect is created. They have a certain something which elevates them above everything else to make them totally powerful, totally meaningful, totally beautiful. I try to make music that effects me as strongly as, say, Armenian Chants, which is a music I love completely. My test for my music is the shiver up the spine. If it doesn't give me the shiver, it's dumped. The reason I love what I do, the books I read, the music I listen to, is that it's possible to take power from them and, with that power behind you, it gives you more power in daily life and more power in creating more power. More power to make it sipler and simpler.

What are your interests now?

The philosophical construct of Current 93 changes a lot, depending on how I view things at the time. My main interests now are Tibetan Buddhism and Christian mysticism of two sorts. First, the medieval mystical perios, people like Hildegard of Bingen, a woman mystic who I greatly admire and who inspires Current 93 a lot. Second, Christian eschatology - the idea that there is a finite period to the world and that time is running out - is very evident in Current's philosophy, specifically in Dogs Blood Rising and Nature Unveiled. These apocalyptic ideas link up with Tiebtan Buddhism positing the age of Kali Yuag - the end age of the world system - although after this it will be recreated again. I'm also interested in conspiracy theories, especially the most extreme religious and political onse.

What are your future plans?

Swastikas for Noddy should be out by September. It's totally different from anything we've done. Happy Birthday Pigface Christus for example, was a pop record with a conventional line-up - guitar, drums etc. We've taken that even further with Noddy in that, in a sense, it's even more conventional. It's much more simple, and has a very, I hate the word, folk-like feel. We've done a few English folk songs, a song by a Welsh poet, and a Blue Oyster Cult cover. Another album is the Aryan Aquarians, which is not Current 93, but pop music done by myself, Hilmar, and Fozz, fromer guitarist of the Monochrome Set. Also, another Current LP, Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow, will be a limited edition of 93 copies only, with a free single. Another limited edition record will be a single of 666 copies called "The Breath of God / The Red Face of God." There's also going to be a CD of half Nurse WIth Wound, half Current 93 called Imperium. Also a disco 12" single by Hilmar and I. I wanted to try other directions than just the ideas in Nature Unveiled, which can be self-limiting, although we'll come back to those later. A lot of people who like Current won't like Noddy because it's too far from theri preconceived notions of who we are, because it's the simplest record we've done - except for Imperium.

Who is Noddy?

The peculiar looking elf with the hat, crucified, on the Current 93 stationary, is Noddy. We are the Final Church of the Noddy Apocalypse. He's a character in children's books who I find very, very surrealistic. There's a whole series of them. "Noddy Goes To Toytown", "Oh Do Be Careful, Noddy", "Noddy Is Extremely Silly". A bit difficult to explain because it's not in the American culture, whereas in England, everyone knows who Noddy is.

The image "in menstrual night" recurs frequently in your music. What does that mean to you?

When I recorded "In Menstrual Night," the effect I wanted was of someone slipping into a dream, but being awake still - conscious of sounds both outside the self and inside the self. It signifies, at the risk of sounding pretentious, the essential matrix from which all inspiration comes. The idea of the womb discharging the sound to have existance in the world. So, the matrix of all possibilities, the womb of some sort, discharges, it menstruates, and from out of that discharge comes the sound. It's a very personal concept, a bit difficult to explain, and probably sounds a bit daft anyway.

What about falling back in fiels of rape", another frequent image you use?

"Rape," in England, is a brightly colored yellow crop grown to feed cattle. So it was a play on this double meaning of rape - someone submitting to rape, falling back in fields of rape - that people willingly submit themselves to aggression. Although, obviously, I'm not saying that any woman likes to be raped, there is something dark and deep in the psyche that allows people to willfully put themselves in a posotion where the know injury, mental, spiritual or physical, may occur. These images represent the two polarities in Current 93's music. It comes from "menstrual night" and exists in a world where people "fall back in fields of rape" - they submit to an aggressive dream from which they can't wake up, having questioned the nature of their being, find they're trapped in the idea they gave to themselves.

What pop music do you like? What pop music do you hate?

I'm not terribly interested in pop music except for Love, my favorite; Blue Oyster Cult, I have all their records; and Cindy Lauper, who I'm a great fan of. Also, Leonard Cohen, Eric Satie, and early Black Sabbath when Ozzy was with them. And, obviously, all the groups I've been involved with or know: Nurse With Wound, Death In June, Coil, Whitehouse, Vagina Dentata Organ, Sol Invictus, Annie Anxiety, Sema... Of course, since I'm involved with all of them, these can't be objective judgments, on the other hand, there's no reason I should be objective. As for hated music, there's no group I actually hate because I don't listen to them, don't have time for them. Seems to be a waste of time to think about what you hate.


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