Nature and Organisation
Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude

If I had to rank the top ten albums of apocalyptic folk (a very challenging task, considering the vague and confused boundaries that circumscribe the genre), I would include without hesitation this "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" by Nature and Organisation.

I have chased it for a lifetime, searched for it in the darkest corners of every damn civilized center I've combed over the past fifteen years, London, Berlin, New York: nothing, unfindable. Until about a month ago, to my great joy, I learned that the German label Trisol (blessed be Trisol!) decided to reissue the album, including it in a mouth-watering operation: the box set "Snow Leopard Messiah" (actually a double CD). It virtually encompasses the entire discography of the project, meaning the aforementioned work (released in 1994 by Durtro) and the unfinished successor "Death in a Snow Leopard Winter" (SLCD, 1998). With the addition of two juicy bonus tracks: "A Dozen Winters of Loneliness" (originally featured in the EP of the same name, released by Durtro in 1994) and "To You" (present in an untitled publication from 1996, also by Durtro).

Without detracting from the providential operation, I still decide to review "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" in its original guise, adopting the cover image with which it came out in 1994 (better in my opinion than that of the reissue: decidedly kitsch in mixing marble statues and snarling leopards in a triumph of digital colors) and limiting myself to evaluating its eleven tracks, which span a distance of about forty minutes. Not much, but enough to reach the qualitative peaks that apocalyptic folk was still able to cross in the mid-nineties.

So let's step back: Nature and Organisation, for those who don't know, was the solo project of Michael Cashmore, an English multi-instrumentalist who contributed to the most important discographic productions of Current 93 (and not only!). Masterpieces like "Thunder Perfect Mind", "Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre" and "All the Pretty Little Horses: The Inmost Light", just to name a few, bear the indelible mark of Cashmore's guitar. The list could go on, but I'll stick to mentioning these titles because they were released around the time "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" was released. And for this very reason, they provide the most reliable parameters for framing the work.

But beware: while Cashmore's inspired writing, his delicate touch, his unmistakable poetics would be enough to make the work appealing, any hesitation in purchasing will vanish the moment it's learned that figures like David Tibet, Rose McDowall, and Douglas Pearce assisted Our Man. Illustrious collaborations that add prestige to the operation and inevitably bring it closer to the early nineties production of the Current.

Despite the (even overwhelming) presence of great names in the field, Cashmore's ego remains unscathed: he indeed carries forward with coherence, inspiration, and great professionalism his stylistic mission: an elegant folk, melancholic but also luminous and endowed with shimmering dreamlike contours (we must remember, after all, that his contribution to the Current albums was significant, and it's reasonable to believe he influenced the Current's artistic direction more than the other way around). Cashmore indeed doesn't lose his qualities as a composer, a refined performer (we also find him grappling with mandolin, keyboards, percussion, and glockenspiel) and a cautious arranger, given the presence of a chamber ensemble called to accompany his dreamy ballads. An ensemble that also carves out moments of real protagonism in the various instrumental interludes, often animated by noise effects and samplings of clear industrial derivation.

And it is precisely in the perfect balance between chamber sketches and medieval minstrel folk, between deafening chaos and intimate lyricism, that Our Man finds the circle's squaring, showing himself rather close to the sensibility of the absent Tony Wakeford. The evocative strength of the violin and cello dances, the squeaking of electric guitar strings, and the martial rumbling of the percussion indeed recall more Sol Invictus than the other luminaries enlisted for the occasion. These, for their part, emerge forcefully in the sung tracks: timeless chants that also look towards that dark folk often contemplated by the late sixties/early seventies dark-progressive scene (an essential reference point for the entire movement).

How not to mention in this regard "Wicker Man Song", a reinterpretation of English folklore entrusted to the enchanted voice of Rose McDowall, a gentle-paced track bearing a pleasant sixties flavor: hearing the graciously off-key singing of the apocalyptic folk muse will cause a real heart flutter for the early fans. But even more powerful will be the effect upon hearing the first verses of "Bloodstreamruns" recited by an inspired David Tibet who doesn't miss the opportunity for self-quotation (“As I Descended with the Dogs Blood Rising, so then I Ascended to the Thunder Perfect Mind…”): the circular violin riff, the crystalline guitar, and the visionary crooning of the Current 93's soul can only bring to mind the splendor of a work like "Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre," which also saw the light precisely in the same period.

And if all this weren't enough, the heart attack will inevitably come with the following track, a "My Black Diary" that is Death in June to the core. Sung by a firm and subdued Douglas Pearce, this tense ballad suddenly takes us back to the glorious times of "But, What Ends When the Symbols Shatter?": dark keyboards complement Pearce's evocative arpeggios, delivering one of his best pieces, enhanced in the finale by Tibet's voice, McDowall's ethereal chants, and Cashmore's electric guitar.

If "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" has a flaw, perhaps it is being excessively unbalanced in the first part, stringing together its best shots right at the start. But given the beauty that envelops all eleven episodes contained therein, I wouldn't be picky: whether or not it's among the top ten albums produced by the genre, "Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude" has the merit of capturing artists at the top of their inspiration, during a phase when apocalyptic folk was experiencing its golden age. Impossible to go wrong.

Returning to Trisol's operation, the product is even more recommended considering the value of the two bonus tracks (the first an eleven-minute folk/industrial nightmare, the second, a distressing dedication barely three minutes long), and especially the presence of "Death in a Snow Leopard Winter": composed of twelve instrumental tracks for piano and strings only, this album left unfinished back in 1998 (but it’s uncertain whether it’ll ever be completed) explores the more intimate aspect of the English multi-instrumentalist. It approaches chamber music tout court, inevitably recalling the infamous "Soft Black Stars" by Current 93, released that same year and to whose gestation Cashmore himself contributed.

You will thus understand that, for all those who love (or have loved) apocalyptic folk, "Snow Leopard Messiah" is an essential purchase.