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Rating: A few days late (and riding the wave of still vivid emotions), I'm about to jot down a few disjointed lines on what is probably to be counted among the most important events of the year in the dark and derived scene: the Italian stop of David Tibet's creation accompanied by eternal cousin Steven Stapleton (who the next day would bring his Nurse with Wound to the same stage!) at a total price of a mere 15 euros, could not fail to attract from across the entire national territory, rabid hordes of fanatical darkness disciples. It's no coincidence that outside the modest Teatro Alfieri in Turin there isn't even a single poster advertising the event: just as well, those who needed to be there already knew about it, and those present had already booked their precious seat online.
It was easy to recognize the shady figures that flocked to a calm and sombre Turin on a mild Tuesday evening: never before had my eyes been able to behold such a heterogeneous crowd yet distinctly distinguishable from the rest of the world. The seventies soundscapes explored in the latest phantasmagoric full-length "Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain" thus attracted not only the usual dark fauna, strictly dressed in black and as surly as ever, but also a ragtag bunch that seemed to emerge from the worst nightmares of a Neil Young after an evening of sodomy with Tony Iommi. Among girls with shaggy hair and boots and bald forty-year-olds with long frazzled hair and equally ragged beards, a series of intellectuals (trendy glasses and shoulder bags) finally nestled, representing a third dimension from which David Tibet's supporter crowd seems comprised today.
Among the crowd crammed in the theater lobby, it was pleasant to spot the awkward figure of Stapleton, intent on selling his CDs (even getting confused with the prices), just to break even. But since I'm not a fetishist: I appreciate, purchase, but don't ask for autographs.
With the preamble done, let's get to the heart of the matter:
The Sharp Void Chant
Act One:
Current 93
James Blackshaw
A dreadful country music wafts through the diffusion line, and I'm left thinking how much of a jerk Tibet is. A drum kit, several guitars stand on stage: thankfully, I think, there's Baby Dee's grand piano...
James Blackshaw enters, a talented youngster of the twelve strings (!!!), promoted by the ever-vigilant Michael Gira, later picked up by Tibet and loaded onto his bizarre bandwagon. The young man undeniably knows his way around the guitar, but he lacks the charisma to sustain the role of the dignified appetizer for a great event: I'm restless, not content, at times bored. His set, of about twenty minutes, based on soft acoustic excursions, flows smoothly nonetheless, even though the little nail-bitten finger occasionally misses the right note... it's probably his young age, the tension of being in front of a fairly dense audience. But when the Nick Drake of our time thanks and stands up, I breathe a sigh of relief, such is my desire to find myself face to face with mr David Tibet.
Those who are Current 93 tonight enter, and the impression is that of finding oneself in front of a company of wretches: from the young hippie (Blackshaw indeed) to the fetid tramp (Baby Dee, as unwatchable as ever) the entrance of Our People stirs hilarity in me, suspending me in a sensation between the hilarious and the surreal. Then enters the usual Tibet, barefoot, usual crap shirt, crap jacket, and crap hat.
In this epiphany lies perhaps the best moment of the evening, which I consider (attention please) somewhat disappointing (oooohhhh - gasps of surprise and shock...). Yes, friends of Tibet who for thousands of understandable reasons stayed home sulking: you didn't miss the event of a lifetime! It was known: Current 93 are not Vasco Rossi, who always has his shower of 30 indispensable classics to make you feel good; I also suspected that an album like "Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain," so crammed with electronics, violins, cellos, counter-choruses, and whatnot, would be challenging to deliver live. A dilemma presented itself in my mind: either we unleash electricity here and blow everyone away, or it’s just a mess and boring.
Unfortunately, the latter scenario occurred: after all, what could one expect from a makeshift lineup like tonight's, ill-suited to render the complexity of the Current’s word? No cohesion between the musicians is perceivable and the learned framework set up in the latest excellent work seems to rest on fragile threads, it’s a wobbly structure, held together by the alternating melodic web patiently woven by Baby Dee's piano and Blackshaw's electric guitar. You can't complain about Tibet, all things considered in form, who knows how to gift us his proverbial flashes of genius; but his performance, tonight, feels somewhat contrived, and rarely will Our Man touch the emotional peaks he has managed to reach on other occasions.
The most disappointing aspect is the setlist, understandably focused on newer material, but which, alas, completely forgets the past. And that's not good.
"Invocation of Almost" has a halting pace, the guitars don’t scratch enough, the drumming doesn’t stir the dust storm that blinded us on the album. Tibet unnecessarily embraces a guitar (the third!) but soon sets it aside next to his hat, preferring to have the freedom of movement to perform his usual contorted fakir antics.
The first part of the set moves at the elephantine pace of the album's heavier pieces, which proceed rather anonymously. Appreciable is the attempt, not always successful but necessary, to rearrange the songs and revolutionize them on the wave of improvisation. But the Current of tonight aren’t the Grateful Dead, often the rock is mitigated by the piano, while the ballads get electrified, so that the entire execution ends up resembling a monotonous sonic mush that climbs, descends, rises again, but doesn’t always convince.
An intimate rendition of "Urshadow", an acoustic interlude where only Tibet and Blackshaw are present on stage, rightly closes the space dedicated to promoting the latest record endeavor. Thus should begin the much-anticipated moment of the classics (but what do I know, a piece from "Black Soft Stars," what the heck, I'm not asking for "Oh Coal Black Smith" or "Lucifer Over London"!). Instead, everything is exhausted in a surf version (!!!) of "Black Ships Ate the Sky", complete with a twitchy Tibet (undoubtedly the most entertaining moment of the evening) and with "Niemandswasser" (from "Sleep His Has House"), electrified, and therefore brought back to the coordinates of the new Current. A nice moment, in any case.
Appreciable is the idea of reintroducing the entire "Birth Canal Blues" EP, from last year. Obviously, the live rendition demands very precise choices: no vocal effects for Tibet, lots of electricity on Baby Dee's piano. It works, the four ballads are fiery, Tibet gives his best, the evening finally acquires apocalyptic connotations. At the finale of "Suddenly the Living are Dying", there’s the quirky idea of hosting on stage a goth chick who improvises as a belly dancer, whose sinuous movements align well with the mournful notes of the piece, but not much with my sensitivity, not very accustomed to such shoddy shows.
The stage empties and fills again for the inevitable encore: a second version of "Not Because the Fox Barks" (first supported by the piano, now by Baby Dee's clumsy organ). Sure, it’s all very nice, but the question naturally arises: what the hell! With an endless backlog of publications not even Tibet knows how many the heck there are, was there really a need to repeat the same piece twice during a modest hour and a half? After poor wretches like us took leave from work, holidays, ditched their women, drove kilometers, spent heaps of money, drank liters of beer?
For those who had the privilege of attending the following day's Nurse with Wound performance, there will be great consolation... But I will talk about this shortly, for now let me shout: thank goodness for you, grand old Stapleton!!!
Set-list
"Invocation of Almost" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
"On Docetic Mountain" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
"Aleph is the Butterfly Net" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
"Not Because the Fox Barks" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
"UrShadow" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
"Black Ships Ate the Sky" ("Black Ships Ate the Sky")
"Niemandswasser" ("Sleep His Has House")
"I Looked to the South Side of the Door" ("Birth Canal Blues")
"She Took Us to the Places Where the Sun Sets" ("Birth Canal Blues")
"The Nylon Lion Attacks as Kingdom" ("Birth Canal Blues")
"Suddenly the Living are Dying" ("Birth Canal Blues")
"Not Because the Fox Barks - reprise" ("Aleph at the Hallucinatory Mountain")
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