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Recurring themes in the work of Current 93 include religion, magic, history and ritual. Through tape loops and minimal instrumentation, the group conjures up images of beauty and horror simultaneously. Whereas the melody carricd throughout is often as soothing as a chant, the interaction between electronic effects and David Tibet's possessed cry feeds the listener various visions. These might include a peek inside the catacombs where spirits, once surreptitious, have now plotted for an out and out attack on the other side, or a joumey into the mind of a little girl - becoming closer to the outside world which will eventually enlighten her or take away her inherent innocence. Throughout their records, one thing remains constant: The atmospheres created by Current 93 transform and breed many responses, allowing themselves to be interpreted to varying degrees.
What is the significance behind the titie Current 93?
Tibet: When I was still in PTV, Fritz from 23 Skidoo, Geoff Rushton and myself recorded three tracks: We were thinking of a name and at that time I was still very interested in Crowley which was a major input in my outlook. And the 93rd Current was a technical name of Crowley's for Thelema. I liked the idea because it implied something at the same time as being anonymous. When I lost interest in Crowley - very rapidly, I did think of changing the name. But on the other hand I thought, "The name isn't that important anyway and people know it, and if I change the name, people might not buy the new record because they don't know who it's by". (laughs)
What made you lose interest in Crowley?
Tibet: I think it's just the passage of time really. I got my
first Crowley book when I was twelve. From then on I started
collecting Crowley and after a while I assimilated it all. I
used to be interested in ceremonial magic but eventually I
realised it's just a rehearsal of reality and there's something
ludicrous if you think about it objectively: a lot of people
dressing up in robes, waving swords and wands.
You just lose interest because they get so involved in
complexity for the sake of it, and after all the years of
studying it and reading it and perhaps trying to put it into
practice, you realise that you're not left with very much -
apart from what turns out to be ego. Crowley obviously had a
lot of valid things to say and was an interesting man. His
dictum, "Do what thou will......" I still agree with because
it's a mystical, anarchistic doctrine. But you find you're just
running around in circles which seems to be common with a lot of
people that get into Crowley and are interested in him for good
reasons.
There's also a danger that bands use people as images. You get
the impression that they're saying, "Well we don't have any
ideas, but we're interested in Manson, Crowley, Jim Jones,
Hitler, whoever it is, so even though we're not very good,
because we're interested in this, we must be fucking weird".
But it's escaping the fact that there's no content there and if
s just gratuitous image posturing. Which is why "Lashtal" was
Crowlean, it admitted it on the sleeve notes - and it had a
specific aim. But "Nature Unveiled" has very little to do with
Crowley on it.
What was the idea and motivation behind "Nature Unveiled"?
Tibet: On the first side, "Maldoror Is Dead" the main influence
lyrically and atmospherically was Maldoror by Lautreamont, which
is my favourite book. In terms of darkness and humour, it just
seems to encapsulate everything; it doesn't take itself too
seriously but at the same time it has got this intense terror or
complete hopelessness that permeates atmospheres that I like to
wallow in I suppose. With the actual lyrics, a friend of mine
had died unpleasantly, and I was very cut up about that and it
was a situation where I was so broken that I started writing the
lyrics to it. Not because I write poetry in extreme emotional
situations - I think that's a pretentious reaction like, "Alas,
alas, I must go weite a poem". But I was laid desolate and I
just wrote "Maldoror Is Dead" and then fitted it into the
Crowley loop which is, "Um, Um, Um," which is Crowley chanting
and playing a drum in funereal fashion. And everything else was
added on to it. The chants and vocal effects were just other
ways of expressing the mood that I had at that time, which was
the most depressing period of my life.
The other side, "The Mystical Body of Christ in Chorazaim",
was meant to be an apocalyptic mass bot not in any structured
sense. I've always liked the idea of a piece of music that, when
the world is being destroyed, would be playing on huge speakers
all over the world and it would just collapse to this final
fanfare. That was my interpretation of what I would like the
music to sound like if I had the choice when we all die. But at
that period, it was very much the mood that I was going through,
it was really depressive and depressing. So it was a reaction
to that really.
What is Chorazaim?
Tibet: Just as Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised up in Jerusalem, so the medieval Christian scholars believed that the Anti-Christ would be born in Chorazaim and brought up in Bethzaida, which is based upon a passage in the gospels where Christ says, "Woe to thee Chorazaim, woe to thee Bethzaida", and then goes on. That was partly because of the fact that I was really interested in conspiracy theories and general plots of that sort - apocalypicism and the Anti-Chtist legend. There's a book I've got about Anti-Christ in the middle ages which is my favourite after Maldoror. I just love the complexity of it and the desperation it conveys, that there's no hope - Anti-Christ is coming.
Do you place a lot of importance on the lyrics or are they used more or less as an additional sound?
Tibet: I think it works in a dual way. The lyrics are important, but again not because I feel I'm saying something that people should take notice of. 'They're important to me beeause, if you read books like "The Torture Garden" by Mirbeao, or "Sodom" by De Sade, or "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad, there are bits of those books that you read and you just get a chill all down your spine because it fits in with the moment so brilliantly. I mean the lyrics that I do are the sort of things that I would like to feel send that sort of thing up myself, not necessarily in other people because it's a personal thing. For the listener, the important thing to do is to listen to the tone of the voice. Whereas for me it's listening to the actual lyrics. But in between the two there's a sort of, not chemical reaction - that sounds very pretentious, but an expression that I put into the lyrics that changes hopefully into the mood that I want to get across. So you might not hear the lyirics, but you'll hear the mood that I'm trying to imply.
What do you think are the best listening conditions for "Nature Unveiled"?
Tibet: In my experience, I found that it's music you should listen to at about two in the morning when you're completely pissed off, in complete blackness, and it will have a quite unpleasant affect on you and certainly change your attitude. I think if you're doing something eise, it really depends on your sensitivity or what sort of person you are. Either you'll just carry on doing the washing up and say, "What's this pile of shit?", or it'll depress you and you'll think, "I can't listen to that", and take it off. Obviously people are going to do with it whatever they want - from playing it in the toilet to giving it to their granny. It's ambient in the sense of formal ambience, not like Eno tinkering away, but with a strong atmosphere.
Do you think the frightened feeling that one might get acts positively or negatively?
Tibet: My relationship with that is so prominent in my mind that I can't really think what effect it would have on other people. Just from experience some people have said, "Oh please take it off, I don't like it, I'm feeling uneasy", - things like that. Comments usually along the lines of the exorcist thing or sounds of a black mass or something like that - which is good. It's a summoning, but it's not a summoning in the sense that, "This record is really weird and will summon up demons". It's just a summoning up of atmospheres that people would normally prefer to lay dormant. I ready dislike groups that say things like that, so I want to clarify that I'm not saying it's going to summon up latent whatevers from anybody that listens to it. I'm just saying for me it draws up things which I'd forgotten about and which I'd rather forget about.
Do you experiment with frequencies at all on "Nature Unveiled", or is it possible to do that on a record?
Tibet: On "Lashtal", the synthesizer buzz is at the correct frequency noted in The Grimoires to raise up Malkunofath. So that's an obvious frequency. On "Nature Unveiied", frequencies are used but not in a theoretieal way. We haven't decided that you start shitting yourself at minus fifteen kilohertz or whatever, mainly because the technology is not there to do it properly. There are slowed down subliminals on it, but not in a sense where we're trying to get subliminals into people's minds. lt was more playing around with the tape recorder and just putting down phrases that I liked which had an atmosphere to them and seeing if it increased the atmosphere.
What are some ways to disguise a subliminal?
Tibet: For example, putting it fairly up in the mix, not massively prominent but noticeable, and then slowing it down until it's just a one second phrase lasting about twenty seconds or something like that. Another method is just putting it so low down in the mix that you're not aware you hear it. Obviously you do hear it, whether your conscious hears it as well or whether it just dissipates through your system nobody is sure about. I think that subliminals are interesting, but a lot has been made of them and I still hold that if you're searching for a specific atmosphere, you don't need subliminals at all to do it, there are much better ways. lt might not sound as impressive or arty but it's a lot more practical.
What exactly is a Tibetan thighbone?
Tibet: It's a ritual instrument used by Tibetan Shamanists. lf
you talk to people who don't know much about it, they'll say
it's a black magical rite for raising demons, which it is in a
sense, but then Buddhism isn't that way inclined. There's a
rite where you sit in a graveyard, you're meant to sit on a
corpse cross legged and blow this thigh bone and this summons up
the demons. So what it basically means is that you're sitting in
a graveyard, you're shit scared and you're blowing something
that is made out of a thigh bone. It's a way of bringing all
your fears to the surface. You're stealing terror that they had
and becoming stronger and cleansing yourself. They always had
to be made from either the thigh bone of a very young virgin
who'd been raped or killed, or the murderer. The idea is that
you're trying to summon out the worst parts of you. The actual
instrument that you're using had to be the closest you could
possibly get to evil, which is the little virgin girl, the
purity destroyed, or the murderer. Obviously for Buddhists,
those are the two extremes of horror they could comprehend.
I first used the instrument when I met Gen and we were
formulating the ideas of PTV. They were almost impossible to
get hold of and we liked the sound and the whole image of it,
the mystique and the atmosphere behind them. And we thought it
would be interesting to use them as a centrepiece of the new
group, which I felt worked very well. I mean we only used it on
the first LP and once on the second and it was more of a
statement - it's an interesting instrument and it's symbolic of
something.
What are some of your thoughts on religion?
Tibet: Religion; it's just a pile of shit, isn't it? Any organised form of philosophy or thought is garbage, it's just another excuse for moulding people, cloning people. That having been said, religion has also produced some remarkable works of art, architecture, statues and music. I do love the imagery of it, and I think all religions have had certain beneficial effects. But in the end, I believe that those effects would have come about without the invention of organised religion anyway. Basically it's more of an excuse for oppression and telling People what to do. "If you don't believe this, you'll go to hell", and so on. It's depressing really because peopie have taken this garbage for so long, I keep thinking that they must wake up one day. But alas, that means you're forgetting just how stupid and sheep-like people are.
What about peopie that go to the other extreme, for instance Satanists?
Tibet: Well, Satan is the opposite of God. You can't worship Satan unless you're a Christian, because unless you're a Christian, you don't believe in Satan anyway. So Satanists are just childish people.
Do you believe that Satan is a force?
Tibet: There's certainly a force that people define as Satan or Uriman, or whatever name they've got for it. I've never been keen on this dualistic thinking. People assume that there are two powers, good and evil, in constant combat. Most peopie would say that God is the superior power. But in that case, why did he create something to fight against him which is inferior to him anyway and that he could destroy? The devil has been fought ever since Zoanastrianism. There's obviously power, but as far as I'm concerned, it's all the same sort of power anyway because you have to look at the old chliches, like, "One man's meat is another man's poison", "What's bad for you makes me stronger". There's a force obviously and it's a force to be respectful towards. You never know. But Satanism is such tedious garbage. lf you look at people who are Satanists, the leaders like Anton Lavey, for example, who wear plastic horns on their heads (pause); he's quite a witty writer and I'm quite aware that he's a con-artist, and he knows it, and is just ripping off arseholes. But Satanism, goats... like really scary... fucking terrified. (laughs)
Can somebody starr off within the ying of organised religion and then come to a knowledge of his own God or whatever, even though it might be the same God that the organised church believes in?
Tibet: I certainly think it's possible. I think that people that
progress from organised religion and eventually come to that
knowledge say, "They've progressed through Christianity and
eventually came to a complete Spiritual understanding that Jesus
is the saviour". They have what the magicians call "The
conversation of their Holy Guardian Angel". They come to that
rapport where you're dissolved in the godhead. It's certainly
possible to do it through organised religion, but I feel that if
you've got that within you anyway, going through the organised
religion is just going to slow you down. In the end you get to
that knowledge which everyone gets to, but you get to it despite
all the dogma and shit you've been fed. And you get that a lot
quicker because your imagination and freedom of thought isn't
crushed down by the weight of centuries of useless tomes in
Latin and arsehole priests wittering about things they know
absolutely nothing about. Religion is garbage, pure and simple,
but I don't think religion is an evil. There ere different
forms of religion and it would be very easy to argue - and
corrcctly I believe - that Christianity is a far greater evil
than Buddhism because the more dogmatic the religion - and
you'll always find the most dogmatic religions are monotheistic
religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism - the more evil
they are the more convinced they are correct. And the more keen
they are on slaughtering everybody that doesn't agree with that.
With a school like Buddhism it's Mahayana, the greater vehicie,
the lesser vehicie. They're dogmatic but there's far greater
scope within a religion like Buddhism or Hinduism for people to
evolve their own little sects with complete freedom. Whereas if
you're a sect within Christianity, you always end up being
something like "The Church of the Latter Day Knowledge of Poison
Handling Snakes of the Lord" (laughs). If you're a little sect
within Christianity, the chances are very high, Jim Jones for
exampie, that you're a comptete nutcase, whereas within Buddhism
or Hinduism, there's scope for people to take their own identity
with them and go and find their particular pathway to Godhead...
How very pompous of me... And furthermore, courses are available
from the David Tibet Self-Knowiedge Foundation, with wonderful
badges - only ten dollrs for a lesson. (laughs)
Is there any sort of message which Current 93 manifests through its music?
Tibet: The only message, if there is a message behind it, is a purely anarchistic one, just fuck everything. I'm not interested in dogmas or morals. There's one passage that sums up everything that the Current manifests: "The sound of the bell of Gionshyn echoes the impermanence of all things. The hue of the flowers of the teak tree declares that they who flourish must be brought low. Yea, the proud ones are but for the moment, like an evening dream in Springtime. The mighty are destroyed at the last, they are dust before the wind".
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