Current 93
Honeysuckle Aeons

Punctual as a gas bill, here comes David Tibet with a new album, barely a year after “Baalstorm, Sing Omega” which unfortunately already showed the first signs of compositional fatigue in a journey dotted with far too many record releases. Not to mention that just a few months ago, an interim work like “Haunted Waves, Moving Graves” was released, nothing more than a conceptual appendix to the phantasmagorical trilogy that had marked a triumphant return for the Current and a true artistic and spiritual rebirth of its deus ex machina.

After closing the trilogy, the prolific David Tibet returns to the music world with a work that does not seem to have any particular conceptual significance, except, on one hand, the heartfelt dedication to two recently deceased friends, Peter Christopherson and Sebastian Horsley, and on the other, the continuation of the frantic spiritual journey of the restless showman.

A path that continues in the wake of the latest albums: an apocalyptic folk that is therefore less and less canonically apocalyptic and increasingly situated in a mythical area between the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The continuity with the recent past is therefore evident (inevitable), even though along the way figures of undeniable importance in the economy of the latest Current sound (James Blackshaw and John Contreras, who seemed to have become indispensable elements in David Tibet's extended family) are lost; yet Tibet, a fertile artist but with premature orgasm, continues his hallucinatory journey undeterred: a path undoubtedly undertaken with conviction but which over time risks becoming frighteningly self-referential discourse, insubstantial if not inspired by a more strictly “artistic” vocation, dedicated to communication, that knows how to channel energies into a form that can be convincing.

So this time the artistic ejaculation occurs too soon, and the listener cannot help but be baffled in front of a tireless lover like Tibet who starts already worn out from too recent sex, skipping all preliminaries and certainly not able to offer a memorable performance. And if the sexual metaphor sounds like heresy in front of Tibet's pure and sincere art, then let's just say that “Honeysuckle Aeons” simply misses the target, resulting in the most insignificant Current album of the last ten years. Obviously, it is not a total disappointment, and those who devoutly follow the rocky artistic trajectory of friend David Tibet will be able to derive pleasure from listening to this record, which, by its short duration (barely thirty-eight minutes) is certainly not one of the most significant milestones in the vast discography of the “band”.

It starts from a cover that is certainly not exciting (it is “Dreams of the Crucifixion with Christ and Two Thieves. Ascending,” an illustration by Tibet himself who for some time has liked to offer his mediocre pictorial art as an iconographic complement to his works): a cover that is certainly not exciting, as was said, but which clearly explains the attitude that will animate the album's contents, which ties back to that thread of albums that see intense yet minimal works like “Soft Black Stars,” “Sleep Has His House,” and “Hypnagogue” as their best representatives.

The sound, in truth, as sparse as it is, presents a certain polychromy given by the contributions of artists called this time to fill the ranks of the caravan: the now indispensable Baby Dee, who divides between piano, accordion, and church organ, and the new entries Armen Ra (theremin), Lisa Pizzighella (karimba), and Eliot Bates (oud, bendir, and erbane). If the 2011 Current speaks the language of the typical piano ballad calibrated since the time of “Soft Black Stars,” one can appreciate the novelty of using a whole series of traditional instruments that give Tibet's journey a series of “unpublished” flavors, archaic atmospheres, and oriental influences that go on to clarify what was conceivable conceptually from previous albums: Tibet's increasingly marked interest in sounds that evoke the warmth of the Mediterranean and the civilizations that, millennia ago, overlooked it. A spiritual quest that briefly sets aside the bucolic folk that had characterized the latest record outputs (primarily the work of the talented Blackshaw) and chooses to take the path of introspection, of the “archaeological excavation” into the depths of the individual (Tibet) and Man through the rediscovery of humanity's most distant past: a path that retraces the steps of Christ, of biblical tradition more generally, and that aims directly at the true core of the cradle of our civilization. A journey in which Tibet assumes more than ever the image of a wandering troubadour leading his company of “street” artists, where the indomitable vagrant soul of Baby Dee has now taken on a fundamental role.

Tibet's restless declamations are obviously the fulcrum around which the entire musical carousel revolves, although not always will his inscrutable inner monologues reach the listener's heart (the opener “Moon,” predictable and verbose, wears out right from the first vocalizations and piano phrases; “Persimmon” is a bit better, vividly recalling the sublime atmospheres of the already mentioned - inevitable stone of comparison - “Soft Black Stars”). Without reaching a true emotional climax (“Honeysuckle Aeons,” I repeat, is a missed orgasm), the work improves track by track, as instruments join Tibet's solitary path (as evidenced by the unexpected materialization of percussion and pseudo-sitar in the atmospheric “Coocko”), a path in which Tibet, limping at times, lost in the desert of his thoughts, akin to those monks seeking catharsis in fleeing the world and hermitage, is supported and held by the inspired piano of Baby Dee on one side and the theremin’s whisper by Armen Ra on the other, infusing the work with an aura of arcane magic.

There will therefore be moments of great intensity. One example: “Pomegranate” ends up alienating the listener, Tibet’s singing is raving and creates emptiness around itself, and certainly, his existential thrashing, at times extravagant compared to the sparse poetic backdrop of the piano, is something that only the Current, albeit at the minimum of their capabilities, can offer. Another example: the wacky accordion of the subsequent “Honeysuckle” continues the suspended journey within a visionary corridor where one is carried far away with minimal effort. Last example, the apocalyptic “Sunflower,” where Tibet returns boisterous, supported by the solemn organ and Baby Dee's counter-singing: a track that partially recovers the choral quality that had made the latest C93 episodes intriguing.

Andrew Liles’ production and mixing contribution (who seems to have definitively replaced friend and collaborator Steven Stapleton, absent for some albums) is invisible, in the sense that the electronic component is understandably zeroed (given the premises assumed by Tibet's artistic mission, dedicated to the most autistic introspection and extricated in the simplest and least contrived form possible); Liles will therefore limit himself to housing and packaging clear and crystalline sounds, albeit lacking the depth that had made equally minimal works shine.

Seen from this 2011, an album like “Black Ships Ate the Sky” now appears something gigantic; today, the overwhelming electricity discharged in the surprising “Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain” is a distant memory. Following the fluctuating “Baalstorm, Sing Omega,” the tiny “Honeysuckle Aeons” marks the further notch of a descending phase in which Tibet increasingly appears a victim of his record arrogance, incapable alone of giving a convincing artistic direction to his creature: the desire to dare and surprise is overall missing, according to me a healthy base of compositional joy is missing that shines on these nine episodes (+ brief intro and outro, both negligible) that surely won't stay indelible in our memory.

Speaking of another artist, it would have been advisable to suggest a change of pace that would allow reasoning about the available energies and their more effective employment. But Tibet's excessive prolificacy has always remained both a cross and delight of an adventure that has known how to give great joys precisely for the indomitable communicative urgency that, sometimes, was the only instrument capable of uncovering impregnable chests filled with treasures of indescribable beauty.

This time we forgive: in the end, we can afford it, given that we won’t have to wait long to have something new from the Current spinning in our stereo. We’ll talk about it again in a few months......