Current 93 - The Inmost Light Trilogy (Southern)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
So this is it, the work by which all other Current 93 material is judged - 'The Inmost Light' trilogy, consisting of two twenty minute mini albums bookending a full on assault of an LP, each revolving around three concepts, those of 'All The Pretty Little Horses', 'Where The Long Shadows Fall' and 'The Inmost Light' itself.
You'll never, ever get your head around it - sorry to break it to you that way, but it's true, and it's better that you had it told to you before listening to it that having to come to that conclusion yourself, as I did, painfully. If David Tibet, founder and brain behind all things Current, himself actually has a full grasp of the complexity, density and capacity of this music to really weird you out, then he's not human, but rather some kind of alien super being. Many think he actually might be the latter.
The first disc in this immaculately packaged trilogy, 'Where The Long Shadows Fall', is a twenty minute piece based around vocals sampled from the only known recording of Allesandro Moreschi, the last castrato. With the title repeated ad infinitum as choirs chime distantly, ominous guitar chords hang in the air for what you begin to imagine will be an eternity. It's totally engrossing, haunting stuff that sets the scene perfectly, but pay attention to the spoken word passages here and you might be enlightened to something so creepy you'll never sleep again.
In fact, it's all spoken word - spoken often over such obvious melody that it doesn't sound like spoken word, but it is - the trick that's being played on you here is that you're making the melodies up yourself. Only guest vocalists (among them Nick Cave, who works wonders here on 'All The Little Horses' penultimate title track) ever utter notes as opposed to dramatically delivered words. If we all listened to it enough to get a grasp of the melodies however, if asked to sing along, I'm pretty sure you and I would come up with precisely the same melody. And that's a mesmerizing trick.
Many people are going to find the hammed up spoken word passages, of which there are many, and vocal ticks highly annoying. This wouldn't bother David. If you're one of those people, you aren't his audience. If you are his audience, he's still not going to be kind to you - 'The Inmost Light' trilogy is a trial, and there's no way of getting round it. It's an impenetrable song cycle about something which it's very difficult to put your finger on, even though the man himself seems totally consumed, to a worrying extent, with whatever it is he's talking about (our guess - the human soul? Maybe... but then there are the bits that really do seem to be about horses, so we've no idea...). Yet there's absolutely no denying that this must be a work of genius. People who are anything less than geniuses wouldn't have bothered creating 'The Inmost Light' in the first place.
Continuing the theme of 'Where The Long Shadow Falls', a track with almost an identical title (minus the 'Where') begins the main chunk of the trilogy, the full length album 'All The Pretty Little Horses'. A fantastical and again overly dramatic, unavoidably childlike sentiment runs through the whole thing, obsessed as it is with the stuff of nightmares and fairytales. Though initially released separately, collecting and releasing them in this way is perfect, and those three unifying themes bind the contents of these three CDs together with startling, mood altering perfection.
Come 'The Inmost Night', the most hammed up vocal so far, you've been listening to 'The Inmost Light' for a good half hour now, and this track is the one that separates those with a passing curiosity in this cycle from those who are actually going to get something out of this experience. It's fucking tough, let me tell you. But worth it. People talk about records as being rewarding, usually when they're accessible discs that they can take some kind of emotional comfort in. This is rewarding because you really feel like you've achieved something when you've soaked it in. It's entirely confrontational and makes no excuses for that.
It's odd that it's so difficult despite being quite melodic, and devoid of the noise which Current 93 are often renowned for. Just the whole feel of it is entirely uncomfortable. You feel like you're doing something wrong by listening to it, indulging in a black art. "In your sleep you will ride while you're mummy's watching over... all the pretty little horsies", he whispers, presumably to a child. The words are comforting, the delivery horrifically unsettling. Childlike themes run through it as blatantly as day is from night. He even talks of a creature called 'Tommy Catkins', who seems to be an actual cat, on a song called 'The Bloodbells Chime', which features the most wistful of repetitive melodies and the sound of someone in uncontrollable despair.
"I have such nightmares and you're all in all of them", he sings (says, sorry) in 'The Frolic', as if addressing every person who has ever lived. And only with that line does he finally address how scary the music he's making is, even if this is all done over a melody which you could happily whistle to a baby.
In the final section, the third disc's 'The Stars Are Marching Sadly Home', it's taken him less than 30 seconds to bring up the topic of that elusive 'inmost light' again, so you're know there are no surprises here, and that what you're about to get for the last 22 minutes of the trilogy is going to be very much in the vein of the preceding few hours. The same riffs reappear, just like the sentiments - one tune, or one lyric, never seems more than ten minutes from happening again. There's that distant sample of the castrated fellow again though, to tie things up nicely, and it's not as if the quality of it has slipped - it's just as incomprehensibly brilliant as it was at the beginning. In fact, this consistency to it is one of the most remarkable things about this trilogy.
Paradoxically, this is a fascinating album which you'll admire for the rest of your days, and yet, you won't half get a huge feeling of relief when you've finished listening to it. Works of genius are often not the easiest ones to digest - and this is no different.
Stream 'The Frolic' from 'All The Pretty Little Horses' HERE.
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