Current 93
Christ And The Pale Queens Mighty In Sorrow

When talking about Current 93, we talk about essentially uncategorizable music, which we define as esoteric industrial only out of habit, convention, or simple convenience. This definition, as vague as it may be, does manage to tame the indefinable offering of Tibet and co., yet if we take a moment to think about the meaning of this expression, we will easily realize its intrinsic contradiction: what the hell does industrial have to do with esotericism?

It's a real oxymoron if you think about it, as it brings together two apparently irreconcilable worlds: industrial, on one hand, is a musical genre with a strong physical impact, not very "human" as it is mediated by technology, and necessarily linked to a well-defined socio-cultural context (let's remember, industrial represents and at the same time demonizes alienation in the society of the industrial age). "Esoteric music," whatever one means by it, is instead the most "metaphysical" sound our ears can encounter: it ends up transcending even the ethereal inconsistency of classical music (which still has primarily artistic aspirations), aiming to create a bridge, a contact, a space of communication with "completely other entities." Not only that: industrial is the nihilistic projection of an absurd present into an even more ominous future, and if its demon is technology, it is precisely what it uses to describe its effects on mass behavior in general and individual psyche in particular. Religious ritual, instead, is a cultural expression as old as time, born precisely to provide answers to insoluble questions that humans have always pondered: in a certain sense, it is the failure of reason in the face of the incomprehensibility of the irrational, an admission of impotence that automatically becomes a request for help, certainty, and compassion. In conclusion, if industrial speaks to us of the often detrimental effects of the overreliance on reason (which seeks to control everything), the world of the occult, conversely, represents the substantial impotence of the same reason.

In light of what has been said, the two universes seem further apart than ever. However, if we reflect a moment longer, we discover that the alienating modern world described by industrial and the anguishing chants of religious psalmody actually have a common point: repetition. The repetition of gestures in an assembly line, the repetition of the same behaviors and mental patterns during daily routines, during the week, during a life, are aspects comparable to the reiteration of drumbeats, the enunciation of formulas during a rite, the gestures performed by participants in the rite itself. And from this simple "stylistic" analogy (let's call it that) derives, in my opinion, the conceptualization of this strange intersection between sacred and profane.

Stripping industrial of its sociological aspirations and modernizing ancient religious rites, esoteric industrial thus becomes a way to desacralize (and not desecrate!, as some might think) the relationship between man and God, which becomes between Man and god, and thus no longer an exclusive "privilege" of the believer, but a shared existential condition, consciously or unconsciously, of all humanity, finding its common denominator in Death, the fear of it, and the consequent search for a reason that justifies and gives full meaning to life. It is an operation of "secularization" of the religious impulse, the desire for eternity, and the need to go beyond reality that is inherent in every man. At the same time, it transcends a purely materialistic view of things through the recognition, or at least the non-exclusion, of something beyond the evidence that can offer hope: the religious impulse becomes an instance (biological, cultural, spiritual, it makes no difference) that expresses the undeniable need to transcend the Real (however each conceives it), which does not concretize and crystallize into a specific religious belief or philosophical system, but into a generic flight towards shores only intuitable but never comprehensible to the limited human mind. Thus the particular is brought back to the universal, and the travail of modern man becomes merely the contingent representation of the eternal tragedy of man on this world. The modes of suffering change, the forces in play change, social scenarios and actors change, but the sense of emptiness, incomprehension, injustices that Life brings, the impossibility of accepting Death, and the impotence in the face of it, are just the same as those man has always suffered.

"Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow" is all of this, and if it is not the best album by Current 93, it is certainly the one that best represents the invention of Current 93.

"Nature Unveiled" and "Dogs Blood Rising" are certainly the cornerstones of the genre, but in my opinion, precisely because they are excessively beholden to an avant-garde approach in which chaos and noise reign, they render the band's intention more vague and confused: distorted voices and lugubrious samples acted more on the subliminal sphere than on the rationally comprehensible plane. Now instead, the obsessive pulsation of the percussion, the complex architecture with which the sounds are put together, the powerful crescendos meticulously constructed, Tibet's finally comprehensible declamation explicates the communicative intent of Current's music, revealing its intentions: to build a modern ritual capable of actualizing the universal discomfort of Man, a song of despair in which man appeals to something supernatural to account for his seemingly unjustifiable suffering, a dive into the ancestral fears of man through the music of the future. And never has it been more appropriate to say that the tears of an entire humanity flow from the artist's eyes: David Tibet, a fragile and hypersensitive soul, is a twig battered and attacked by the cold and impetuous winds of life. And it is precisely this vulnerability that proves to be his winning weapon, for it allows him to penetrate the essence of things: the world invades and violates him, simply flowing through those wide-open, defenseless doors that are the senses of a sensitive being. And through his voice, these energy flows that traverse us but which we most often fail to grasp are translated and amplified, remaining thus beyond our awareness. A bit like what happens with artists like Nick Drake or Florian Fricke: through the artistic medium, we too can thus access where reason does not reach, where every attempt at logical explanation fails miserably.

In truth, "Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow," released in 1988, belongs to a second artistic phase of Current 93, in which the band's sound experiments, still based on long suites with strong visionary impact, are immersed in a dimension more melodic than before, thus opening glimpses to the fruitful folk season that would soon follow. After a varied album influenced by the neo-folk of Death in June as "Swastikas for Goddy" was, "Imperium" had marked a return to past obsessions through a less anarchic and more reasoned approach (more "canonically musical," we might say). And this "Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow," equally laden with biblical references, merely continues the discourse. Less centered on themes of life and mortality ("Imperium," let's remember, was written during Tibet's life-threatening hospital stay), attention here is turned towards different "Christian mythologies," and the discourse assumes a theological bent.

Exhausting even from the title, "Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow" is a colossal work of over seventy minutes that will severely test the endurance of even the most willing listener. Here, it must be said, the subliminal spills into actual boredom, and vice versa. And it's not quite clear if in the end (assuming one gets there), the feeling of dizziness we will have is due to the evocative power of the music or simply to its excessive monotony. Accompanying Tibet (who definitively abandons his peculiar metaphysical howl in favor of a more suggestive clear recitation), we find once more friend Douglas P. (guitar, voice, and percussion), and once again, there is no doubt about it, Death in June influences will be heavily influential. Completing the lineup, we have the sweet Rose McDowell (guitar and voice), now fully the band's muse, and Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus on bass (shockingly seeing his name next to Douglas P.!). Indispensable as usual is the contribution of the ever-present Steven Stapleton (on guitar and effects), while the mixing work this time is delegated to a certain Dik, who will also handle the piano parts.

"Dogun" is an assault of gloomy industrial where Tibet's faint whisper is literally overwhelmed by the roar of percussion and the clatter of Douglas P.'s guitar: this track inevitably recalls Death in June's "Nada!" and brings Current's music back to the roughness of its beginnings (the slowed-down monk choirs and sped-up voices in the background are disturbing). "Forever Changing" is instead a reading of a text by Hildegard von Bingen: possibly a bit too long and monotonous (almost ten minutes), it consists of sparse piano chords and cadence bass hits. Tibet's clear voice, evidently not yet at its peak, anticipates the hallucinatory soliloquies that the grim sprite would abundantly dispense in the future. With the following track, "The Ballad of the Pale Christ", an evocative acoustic ballad with vague seventies echoes, things decidedly improve: supported by Pearce's unmistakable guitar and invigorated by Rose McDowell's backing vocals, Tibet's voice, though still ungraceful, finally seems comfortable in the new acoustic dimension.

But it's with "Christ and the Pale Queens", the first part of an ideal trilogy that will continue with "The Breath and the Pain of God" and "Mighty in Sorrow", that the work truly begins: twenty minutes of pure emotions in a hair-raising apocalyptic crescendo where progressively uneasy whispers, airy keyboards, bass embellishments, powerful percussion, paranoid violin loops, and Tibet's haunted singing blend together, to which the angelic choirs of Rose McDowell will join in the endless finale. This is the masterpiece of the album. This, perhaps, is the peak of esoteric industrial, a track of immense alienating power that will envelop you in a comfortable web of sounds and melodies repeated to obsession, but enriched each time by always new variations.

The album's last three tracks, finally, shuffle the deck, bringing very few new elements to the sound presented so far: "The Red Face of God" is nothing but a remix (frankly unnecessary) of the opener "Dogun", while the already mentioned "The Breath and the Pain of God" is a reprise of the colossal title track, reiterating the main theme by repeating the phrase "Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow" about a million times. Not satisfied with damaging our ears enough, the Current decide, in the end, to give us a piece like "Mighty in Sorrow", a grueling appendix to the previous track, where the same violin loop (already admired in the chaos of the title track) is repeated in loop for almost twenty minutes, accompanied by effected voices and sick percussion: a sonic agony that will mercilessly extend until the brain finally explodes in the head, leading to states of anxiety and paranoia that make one lose all sense of space and time.

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