Current 93
Biography
Current 93 was created in 1982 by David Tibet, the late Jhonn Balance of Coil and Fritz Haaman of 23 Skidoo. After releasing their debut 12 inch single (which Tibet immediately disowned as "pseudo-shamanic dross"), the group quickly evolved into Tibet's personal project with Balance leaving to form Coil and Haaman returning to Skidoo.
With the seminal Nature Unveiled, Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound joined Current 93 and has been a key member ever since; Steve Ignorant of Crass, and Youth of Killing Joke were also featured on this album. Current 93 began functioning as an ever-shifting circle of collaborators revolving around the creative core of Tibet and a few other key players. In 1986, after David returned from living in Nepal, Current 93 recorded and released the first concept album dealing with the moon, menstruation and Jesus Christ as King Of Dreams and Lord Of All Playgrounds, In Menstrual Night. That same year, Tibet coined the phrase "apocalyptic folk" to describe the unique style of experimental and ecstatic acid-folk Current 93 was developing that would prove so influential to a whole generation of young musicians two decades later.
Tibet proceeded to found the Durtro label through which all C93's subsequent works have been released, starting with Thunder Perfect Mind and Of Ruine Or Some Blazing Starre. Realizing that it had become too easy and tedious to continue with the telluric sound-maps that Current 93 had created previously, these albums boasted a more organic, acoustic sound than his early apocalyptic fixated pieces. His meeting with Michael Cashmore, one of the most talented and influential guitarists presently active, resulted in a series of hallucinatory, limpid and profoundly moving albums recording their powerful and poignant work together.
The late 90's would see Current 93 release what was their most fully realized work up till then, The Inmost Light Trilogy, Where The Long Shadows Fall, All The Pretty Horses and The Starres Are Marching Home drew together all of Tibet's influences and obsessions, and contain some of his finest lyrics and Michael Cashmore's most enduring tunes; two of the numbers were sung by Nick Cave and one by David's heroine Shirley Collins (whose recently published autobiography England Over Water includes a foreword penned by him). After the trilogy, Current's sound aesthetic shifted again with two of C93's most powerful artistic statements: Soft Black Stars stripped the arrangements down to just piano and vocal, and the recently reissued Sleep Has His House (dedicated to his recently "dead" father) was performed solely by Tibet on voice, Michael Cashmore on harmonium and Steven Stapleton on sounds.
The end of the last century also saw Current 93 starting to play sold-out concerts throughout the world: releases like Halo, As The World Disappears and How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon are documents of their powerful live performances. In 2002 Current 93 were the subject of the extensively annotated and illustrated hardback book England's Hidden Reverse by The Wire's David Keenan along with sister-groups Nurse With Wound and Coil, published by SAF of London. Their previous album, Black Ships Ate The Sky, was a critical and popular success, featuring different vocal interpretations of Wesley's hymn "Idumea" as the central spine of an album whose central concept dealt with the return of AntiChrist and the Second Coming of Jesus.
Over their more-than-25 year career, Tibet has been the one constant presence in Current 93, having collaborated with artists as varied as Marc Almond, Anthony (of Anthony and the Johnsons), Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter (of Throbbing Gristle and Carter-Tutti), Michael Cashmore (Nature & Organisation), Joolie Wood, Steve Ignorant (Crass) Nick Cave, Rose McDowall (Strawberry Switchblade), Tiny Tim, Bjork, Shirley Collins, Bill Fay, Andrew W.K., Rickie Lee Jones and many others.
Born in Malaysia in 1960, where he lived for 14 years, Tibet now lives in Hastings, down by the seaside in Southern England, where he records, paints, publishes, and studies and translates Coptic texts. His paintings sell for considerable sums and he loves his wife and their cats.