Current 93
Birth Canal Blues

Never underestimate David Tibet; never overlook the seemingly most insignificant release by Current 93.

Just as "Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder)" was the conceptual appendix to the monumental "Black Ships Ate the Sky," "Birth Canal Blues," released in 2008, serves as the ideal prelude to "Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain" ("Adam stands on the setting mountain..." recite, not by chance, the first verses of the intense opener "I Looked to the Southside of the Door", where Tibet initiates the concept upon which the lyrical and sonic architectures of the latest unmissable full-length are founded).

"Birth Canal Blues" is another short work, but given its contents and the emotions it elicits, it is certainly not to be considered a minor episode, so much so that we can place it alongside the legendary EPs of the early nineties ("Lucifer over London" and "Tamlin," for instance).

Accompanied by the elegant piano of Baby Dee and the minimal electronics of Andrew Liles and Rob Sands, David Tibet focuses the attention on himself, on his peculiar and inimitable vocal interpretation.

Setting aside the electric impulses of certain episodes from "Black Ships Ate the Sky" and the thunderous split with Om, the Current return to the aching and introspective grooves of works like "Soft Black Stars" and "Hypnagogue," but they do so with renewed verve, that in certain moments brings out the harsh brutality of the works from the early eighties.

Just think of the distorted voices present in the second track "She Took us to the Place where the Sun Sets": concentrated violence and sonic sickness capable of nullifying in one fell swoop all black metal and all possible derivations of that sort of post-extreme metal so fashionable today (Today is the Day, Khanate, you name it). Such violence, mind you!, spread over the graceful and classical step of a piano: a cocktail that makes the Current's proposal even more disorienting and uncategorizable.

Let's consider, for instance, the odd, swaying, pendulous, always effected grunts that animate the third great track "The Nylon Lion Attacks as Kingdom": a visionary ballad that brings new elements to the already vast and nuanced discography of the Current and makes Tibet a unique and unpredictable artist, yet always firmly coherent with his personal artistic vision.

Special praise must be given to Baby Dee's work on the ivory keys, a performance that at times becomes heartrending, at others dramatic, yet always traversed and animated by a profound poetic vein that seems to want to overshadow the talent of the legendary Maya Elliott, the historical pianist of Current, and co-author of immortal albums like "Soft Black Stars."

In just twenty minutes, in just four tracks, Tibet demonstrates all his talent, all his unparalleled charisma, all his unmatched expressive strength, and we feel sorry for the others. Moreover, a certain nostalgia resurfaces for what Current 93 was in their purest and most shining form, before becoming the caravan (a splendid caravan!) capable of hosting the most diverse artists, called to inject vital sap into an entity that, despite its years on its back, does not seem to want to yield to the hardships of old age.