| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"Docrodile, Reptile Extraordinaire :#####~~" |
| Date: |
16 Jun 2006 08:09:26 AM |
| Object: |
Waiting For The Apocalypse In A Hastings Back Garden |
Waiting for the apocalypse in a Hastings back garden
(Filed: 16/06/2006)
Chris Campion meets David Tibet of the industrial folk band, Current 93
What is it about seaside towns that attracts the great British
eccentric? Whatever it is, Hastings is no exception.
It hosted the =EF=AC=81nal days of the notorious Aleister Crowley, the
self-proclaimed "wickedest man in the world". And now it is home to
David Tibet, an "apocalyptic Christian" and the man behind Current 93,
a 25-year musical project that charts his curious spiritual beliefs.
Tibet is something of a patron to other mis=EF=AC=81ts and outsiders. He
released the =EF=AC=81rst album by Mercury Award winner Antony Hegarty (of
Antony & the Johnsons), whom he was introduced to by a mutual friend
several years ago.
"I've always been drawn to people who have given their everything to
create their own vision of beauty," he says.
To this end, he operates a small, self-run independent label called
Durtro. But his main focus has always been his work as Current 93. Born
out of the '80s "industrial" scene that formed around Throbbing
Gristle, Current 93 has been described as "apocalyptic folk", a
dramatic-sounding genre that began life by accident.
"Someone wanted to know how to =EF=AC=81le us," says Tibet. "I said, well,
we're apocalyptic folk, as in 'people'. They took it literally."
Current 93's music slips between gentle melodies on cello, =EF=AC=82ute and
violin, and ambient soundscapes that provide a dreamy counterpoint to
his spoken verse. Apocalypse is the focus of his new album Black Ships
Ate the Sky, which vividly imagines the invading forces of the
Antichrist.
The album came out of a fevered dream Tibet had four years ago, while
living in Walthamstow; to be fair, a place quite likely to inspire
apocalyptic visions.
"It was made clear to me that this was the invasion force of
Antichrist, portending the Second Coming of Christ,"
Tibet tells me, as gulls caw above his back garden. Born David Michael
Bunting, the son of a mining engineer who settled in Malaysia after the
war, Tibet was educated in England but raised in Malaysia until his
teens.
By his own admission, he was a precocious and inquisitive child. At 10,
he had already consumed Tolkien and CS Lewis along with Thomas De
Quincey and MR James's The Apocryphal New Testament. At 12, after
picking up a lurid paperback by Aleister Crowley, he joined the
International Order of Qabalists.
"I used to get their literature sent to the prep school I went to in
Yorkshire. It was always con=EF=AC=81scated. As a way of coping with a world
I didn't understand - the world of the English prep school - I was
always plotting different methods of escape, and what to do if the sky
suddenly split open and Christ returned."
From 1982 onwards, he ploughed his dreams into musical forms. "A lot of
my work is about trying to recapture when I was happiest, in Malaysia."
Tibet's work is undercut by an absurdist humour. "If I say, 'There's
the knock at the door; it could be Christ returning', I fully realise
it could also be the postman. I'm aware that people can listen to what
we do, be charitable, and still think I'm insane."
That said, a recent concert hall tour of Europe found him playing to
1,000-strong audiences. "I'm not an evangelist," he says. "Current is
about trying to explain myself to myself and to work out my own
salvation."
For now at least, Tibet has found his own safe harbour from the black
ships, in Hastings.
"If you're waiting for the Second Coming of Christ," he says, "it's
nice to do it by the seaside."
'Black Ships Ate the Sky' is out now on Durtro Jnana.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=3D/arts/2006/06/15/bmtibet15=
..xml&sSheet=3D/arts/2006/06/15/ixartleft.html
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Waiting For The Apocalypse In A Hastings Back Garden |
16 Jun 2006 03:21:39 PM |
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Docrodile, Reptile Extraordinaire <:#####>>~~ wrote:
Waiting for the apocalypse in a Hastings back garden
(Filed: 16/06/2006)
Chris Campion meets David Tibet of the industrial folk band, Current 93
What is it about seaside towns that attracts the great British
eccentric? Whatever it is, Hastings is no exception.
It hosted the =EF=AC=81nal days of the notorious Aleister Crowley, the
self-proclaimed "wickedest man in the world". And now it is home to
David Tibet, an "apocalyptic Christian" and the man behind Current 93,
a 25-year musical project that charts his curious spiritual beliefs.
Tibet is something of a patron to other mis=EF=AC=81ts and outsiders. He
released the =EF=AC=81rst album by Mercury Award winner Antony Hegarty (of
Antony & the Johnsons), whom he was introduced to by a mutual friend
several years ago.
"I've always been drawn to people who have given their everything to
create their own vision of beauty," he says.
SNIP
For now at least, Tibet has found his own safe harbour from the black
ships, in Hastings.
"If you're waiting for the Second Coming of Christ," he says, "it's
nice to do it by the seaside."
'Black Ships Ate the Sky' is out now on Durtro Jnana.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=3D/arts/2006/06/15/bmtibet=
15.xml&sSheet=3D/arts/2006/06/15/ixartleft.html
Oh yes without a timetable he has just to await that fateful knock!
Many are called, but few are in a bananna lounge slurping down that
Daiquiri, awaiting that invite.
LB
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