"Sleep Has His House" is an intense, profound album, born from David Tibet's grief over his father's death, to whom the work is dedicated. It's an introspective journey, which takes on the tones of a heartfelt Eternal Rest: it's the loving farewell the artist pays to a loved one and the irreplaceable void left behind by their departure. There are many similarities with an album like "Soft Black Stars": equally introspective, minimal in form, hermetic in content, they fully represent the new artistic phase of Current 93. But it's no longer the chamber-like settings and Maya Elliott's piano that dominate: "Sleep Has His House", marked 2000, brings Tibet's creature back to glorious folk attire, naturally revisited in light of new experiences gained, with the awareness that after an important album like "Soft Black Stars" it would have been impossible to go back and pretend nothing had happened.
"Sleep Has His House" carries within it two paradoxes, one stylistic and the other conceptual. From a musical point of view, despite having an elegant and refined folk form, the album is perhaps the most intrinsically esoteric in the formation's vast career, and here, in my opinion, it reaches peaks of sacredness and metaphysical transport that had not been achieved even in albums with a strong ritual component like "Nature Unveiled", "Imperium", and "Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow".
From a conceptual point of view, unlike "Soft Black Stars", which explores the emotional abysses of Tibet's tormented soul in detail, "Sleep Has His House", though starting from the same premises, assumes a sense of vastness, of infinity, of universality that is difficult to reconcile with the private dimension of the artist's sorrow. "Sleep Has His House", even more enigmatic than its predecessor, returns to being, forgive the term, downright apocalyptic. Apocalyptic like the mature albums of Nico, a voice from another world, a vivid testimony of Human Tragedy. And like her, Tibet, with this work that seeks the Universal in the Individual ("The Great in the Small"), rises as a poet of the immeasurable and the inconceivable: the bewilderment of man in the face of the End.
The first six tracks essentially move on the same coordinates: the sparse chords of a harmonium, played by Tibet himself, and his poignant poetry underpin the work. It's an album of Tibet for Tibet, where the most faithful companions, the fundamental Michael Cashmore and Steve Stapleton, stay in the background, leaving the stage to their friend and confining themselves to refining and polishing the sounds. Certainly noteworthy is the beautiful "Good Morning, Great Moloch", a track that well represents the tragic and at the same time epic mood of the album, which will become a true classic of Current's new artistic phase: Tibet's voice is at the peak of its minimalism, the words are barely hinted at, but the intensity is palpable, and it's impossible not to be thrilled in the epic final crescendo, where the harmonium continues to weave imposing loops, urged on by the solemnity of the guitars and bass, which in this recording plays a role of absolute prominence.
Also beautiful are "The Magical Bird in the Magical Woods", which at a certain point decides to dematerialize into restless and chilling ambient scores, or "Red Hawthorne Tree", the most catchy track of the lot, which, amidst trumpet blasts and suggestive piano incursions, revives us from the dark transition atmospheres that precede it. Worth noting, finally, is the emotional climax of "Niemandswasser", a manifesto of Tibet's inner struggle, whose voice, carried by an inspired guitar arpeggio, bravely fights against the whistling wind and the blinding dust, further fueling the tragic and spiritually heroic tones that characterize the work.
The last three pieces, on the other hand, are a story unto themselves, forming a concept within a concept, a colossal thirty-minute suite in which the listener is drawn into a truly mystical experience. "Lullabay", not even two minutes of solo harmonium, is just the introduction to the emotional peak of the album, the endless title track: 24 exhausting minutes of drones in which Tibet's faint voice is engulfed by the undulating movement of the harmonium, which rises and falls, generating a true state of ascension, of mystical transport, of hypnotic suspension. For the first 20 minutes, Tibet repeats "Have pity for the dead, sleep has his house", a subdued plea for pity and mercy, an admission of powerlessness, a prayer that finds release only in the last long-awaited minutes, where Tibet finally launches into a liberating declamation of verses with enigmatic and elusive content: undoubtedly one of the most cultured and original attempts to transcend the real through the simple medium of music. "The God of Sleep Has His House", as if that weren't enough, ups the ante: starting with the same oscillating harmonium pattern that, slowly sucked into the void, now relentlessly resurfaces, it's in fact a reprise of the title track, and it closes the album with a sense of quiet resignation in the face of the unknown and the inevitable.
As one might have guessed, "Sleep Has His House" is a powerful, intense experience, perhaps unique in the history of music. It is impossible, for those who wish, not to be enchanted, bewitched, if not hypnotized, by the magnificence of this music and the alienating power of the landscapes it paints. At the same time, it's impossible not to feel the impact. It seems pointless to add, indeed, that listening is not among the simplest and most smooth: "Sleep Has His House", even for the most understanding, courageous, and prepared fans to face Tibet's creation, is a very, very, very arduous experience. The accused on the stand are a vocal interpretation, albeit deeply heartfelt, truly minimal, and the excessive similarity between the different pieces.
"Sleep Has His House" is a verbose, uncompromising, inevitably arduous album, since the intent is not to entertain, but to vent emotions that urgently need to be expressed at a moment of extreme vulnerability, naturally without worrying about the final outcome. The emotions arise more from the musical content, from the flights taken by the imagination, which leverages those contents, preparing to make the Great Leap Beyond. Anyone with imagination, as well as a good dose of patience and a willingness to embark on such a journey, will not be disappointed: "Sleep Has His House" is an elegant, ambitious, sincere work, a door that allows one to temporarily leave the world of the living and taste for a moment the flavor of Eternity. Come forward, if you dare!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Red Hawthorn Tree (04:32)
she came to me as blood and fluid
tides and sleep
i caught her eyes saucerwide
as she turned into the sky
she bit her lips
and stared sullenly into the bleached silence
her fingernails slowly brushing
the snow from her hair
my flight from your face
must finally destroy me
i had always hoped
this world could be complete for me
the earth around is fresh with rain
the insect world is silent
the red flower ascends
the woman is a like a child
i will open up the windows now
and look down
on the lapis lazuli swell
that will sweep all of this away
the red hawthorn tree
appears at my window
05 Immortal Bird (06:31)
what drives us on?
what drives us on?
i left something of myself in you
fourscore, twenty, thirty
in your body and in your flesh
in your vault of skin
i was nothing for you
but the shadow of another love
that one day for you
would shift the skies
to pastures blue
streaked with passing and loss
tortoise green in my eyes
from the moss of my past
you arise
and lightly then i saw you smile
with ivory throat and ivory eyes
at night i catch you before i sleep
and if i died before i wake
i prayed that you my heart might keep
i cannot hold your tunnelled eyes
near my heart any longer
all this love is nothing truly:
mist of moons' breath
grit of evening
the grass was green (i now recall)
before my own particular fall
i saw we were both really
masks on nothing
(the moonlight sweeping over northern beaches)
all the trees stand stripped
just silhouttes of memories
at night i have started to dream of you:
your eyes are wide
and shot through with seablue
06 Niemandswasser (06:07)
i have to say
i have to see
the twilight moonlit
the houses on hills
all appear so blind
at night
the webs that bind them
to the skies
are golden, sparkling
with blood and dust
the angelic motes
on beams of blood
dance
at night
the trees turn under the rain
pan lies dead
from rut to rot
i saw the lighthouses all fall
small angels hold parasols
and point to other skies
the clacking on the fence
is long and loud
the noise of the fingers
crack in my head
behind my eyes
between the bloodwalls
that line the streets and the skulls
forever
the bonewhite temple
letters piling up
unanswered stars yawning together
you may have this gift from me
and i will send you nothing
from what i see
(and i see all)
the green is going
black peter arises
with his sack chock full of tricks
(and none of them eternal)
black peter arises
with his bag of blood
(and none of this runs eternal)
black peter arises
and he smiles
white teeth cap over the blackened stumps
all the kings of all particular times
have passed away
and lie in gutters
pretty as pink
i thought that i had seen
some bright new dawn
the children all laid down and smiled
the fires no longer smold and dullied
i watched the trash
that covered this world
swimming in farces
in mud and in blood
without a care in the world
the corpses are piled up almost to heaven
chuckling or smiling
and rubbing their hands
without a care in the world
and so we all lie dozing under the sun
images of banality flick past our eyes
as we bask in this paradise
littered around us
books of religion covering my feet
and i haven't the time for a word
but still i see cottages covered in honeysuckle
the dovecots so full of the Birds in their thousands
the cats lap at cream in their pussyland dream
and they haven't a care in the world
and then it shines
we're all dust
i drop the compasss and point out the pole
and then it shines
we're all dust
so wait for me at niemandswasser
as i watch the flowers bloom
and trail the horseflies as they scream
the songs we'll never know:
it shines:
that we're all dust
it shines:
we're all dust
we're all dust
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