MYRNINEREST . . . James Blackshaw & David Tibet of Current 93

edited August 2012 in whirling dervish
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"Jhonn," UTTERED BABYLON, their harrowing and haunted debut, featuring James Blackshaw and David Tibet, is centred on David’s friendship with, and love for, the late Jhonn Balance of Coil as well as Jhonn’s death and how it affected the circle of friends around Jhonn.
With all lyrics by David and all music written by James, the album was recorded during February 2012 with James Blackshaw on classical guitar and harmonium and David as vocalist."
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- "THE SPHERES TWO is mixed by The Bricoleur and comes in an identical sleeve to THE SPHERES ONE except that the catalogue number on the spine is THE SPHERES TWO and it carries a standard numerical barcode"

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- THE SPHERES THREE is mixed by Andrew Liles

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- "Journey to Avebury (THE SPHERES FIVE) is MYRNINEREST’s soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s film of the same name—Jhonn Balance’s favourite film by Jarman—and has been issued to commemorate MYRNINEREST’s London concert on 4 August and features David Michael on vocals, Andrew Liles on electric rain, and Michael Cashmore on piano, based on a theme by James Blackshaw. This one-sided 12" record comes in a full colour sleeve. The piece is 13:36 in length."
Coptic Cat - http://www.myrninerest.com/ - Emusic

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David Tibet
- "(born David Michael Bunting, 5 March 1960) is a British poet and artist who founded the music group Current 93, of which he is the only full-time member.
He was given the name "Tibet" by Genesis P-Orridge, and in January 2005 he announced that he would revert to the name David Michael, although he continues to use the well-known "Tibet" in his public career to date.
David Bunting was born in Batu Gajah, Malaysia. Early in his career, he collaborated with Psychic TV and 23 Skidoo. Tibet left Psychic TV in 1983 and founded Current 93 the same year. He has worked with Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound (of which band he is a member), Michael Cashmore, Douglas P. (of Death In June, on whose albums he has appeared several times), Steve Ignorant of Crass (using the name "Stephen Intelligent"), Boyd Rice, Little Annie, Björk, Nick Cave, Rose McDowall, and Ian Read of Fire and Ice.

Tibet's lyrical subject matter reflects a consistent preoccupation with all aspects of apocalypse. He has long been a student of Christian eschatology. At a precocious age, he developed a strong interest in Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientis. He joined the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis and borrowed the term "93 Current", the current of Thelema or Agape, from Crowley. His initial recording as Current 93, LAShTAL, was, according to Tibet, "the invocation of Malkunofath on the Nightside of Eden, the reverse of the Tree of Life". He has long proclaimed a virtual anathema to Crowleyism (despite a strong appreciation for Crowley as an individual) and instead has embraced at various intervals, Tibetan Buddhism and esoteric Christianity. His projects continue to focus on the multifaceted aspects of apocalypse, mainly death, loss and destruction. Progressively, his works are tempered by Christian mysticism and an increasingly strong faith in the end of the world."

- Wiki

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James Blackshaw
- "Initially inspired by the guitarists of the 60’s Takoma label to teach himself fingerpicking, James Blackshaw writes long-form pieces primarily for solo 12-string guitar that are heavily influenced by minimalist composers and European classical music and which use drones, overtones and repeating patterns alongside a strong inclination for melody to create instrumental music that is both intelligent, hypnotic and emotionally charged.
Born in 1981, Blackshaw has so far released six solo studio albums, one live recording and has also appeared on numerous compilations in the last five years. "O True Believers" (2006, Important Records/Bo’weavil Recordings), "The Cloud of Unknowing" (2007, Tompkins Square) and "Litany of Echoes" (2008, Tompkins Square) have received huge critical acclaim from printed and online publications including Pitchfork, Billboard, The Wire, The Observer, The Times, Uncut, The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Magnet and Acoustic Guitar Magazine. "The Cloud of Unknowing" was also listed as one of the 50 best albums of 2007 by The Wire (no. 24) and Pitchfork (no. 34).

- Young God Records

Comments

  • Wow, looks like an incredible combination. I love Blackshaw and Tibet apparently moved in a circle I used to follow.
  • edited September 2012
    @ Thom:
    Wow, looks like an incredible combination
    - It certainly is . . .
    I love Blackshaw and Tibet apparently moved in a circle I used to follow.
    - I am very interested to know about this circle . . .
  • @BN:

    It says he was given the name Tibet by Genesis P-Orridge and was, in fact, a member of (or, at least, collaborator with) Psychic TV. With a name dropping like that, Current 93, Nurse with Wound and Nick Cave I'm guessing a little digging would also put him in with the likes of Blixa Bargeld, Einstürzende Neubauten, the rest of Throbbing Gristle, maybe even guys like Mark Spybey, DVOA, Not Breathing, etc. A bit of a leap, but they are all very collaborative people and tended to work with each other a lot. Seems like he was mostly involved in the acts that I had just started to touch upon before drifting away from that sound.
  • Thanks. The only albums C93 I had in my library were the 2009 Mountain pair that hadn't really had a decent listen.  I must say that it took a while to get into David Tibet's delivery, but I finally got it midway through that compilation The Inmost Light (a recent addition). This last listen with 2009 was much more rewarding.
    I really enjoyed spending the evening with MYRNINEREST. I'm also a James Blackshaw fan and only wish I'd bitten on these ones early. Truly unique voice and that guitar! Some pretty intense absorbing stories ending with a dreamy Journey. It had me googling Christian Eschatology to see what that was all about. Interesting, I'll try to do a little more studying on that, hopefully before the Rapture, and "last thing" -Thanks again! 
  • You are welcome as "always"   ;)

    - At the buttom of the Bandcamp page under "If you like MYRNINEREST, you may also like:" I found an album cover that could only be a piece of David Tibet art.

    And yes, another breathtaking David Tibet project (from 2016) :

    A transformative union of two idiosyncratic tellers, Hypnopazūzu sees Current 93 speller David Tibet joining forces with the eternal Youth, famed not only for his work as bassist with Killing Joke but for production and collaborative work with an outlandishly eclectic list of artists from Alien Sex Fiend to Paul McCartney. Together, they’ve created a singular hallucinatory vision that marries symphonic splendour to indignant gnostic intensity – Create Christ, Sailor Boy draws in, and down, masks terrestrial and celestial and summons a collection of songs unlike anything either artist has created previously. . . .
    - House of Mythology - Emusic


    Hypnopazūzu is the duo of none other than Youth (Killing Joke) and David Tibet (Current 93). A long time in the making, Create Christ, Sailor Boy is their new album, an elaborately-packaged 3-sided LP (with a laser etching on side 4). It contains ten songs bringing together spheres and planets for the ultimate Hallucinatory PickNick
  • Thanks, & I'm not waiting 5 years to get it. I've also got some new folks
    to explore at House Of Mythology
  • edited November 2020
    ^^ Unfortunately HOM is no longer on Emusic.
    - I´ve just found this on Bandcamp:

    Zu93 - Mirror Emperor
    2018
    SURE, EVERYTHING IS ENDING, but not yet. Ever since David Tibet’s Current 93 sung its birth canal blues back in the early 1980s, there's been a smell of apocalypse in the air. As the American author of horror novels Thomas Ligotti put it, Tibet has over the years presented us with words and images that are “portentous in a literal and most poetic sense.”* No matter how great or small, Tibet’s visions has sustained a sense of urgency throughout his many, many projects and towering work. 35 years on, as dark clouds once again are gathering on the horizon, his syncretic tale of the fallen empire inside us all seem to be as pertinent as ever. Arise for bad times.

    Enter Zu93, the effectively named collaboration between Tibet and the ever-changing Italian group Zu, centered around Massimo Pupillo and Luca Mai. Seven years after the collaborators first met in Rome, the most beautifully apocalyptic city of all, they can finally present Mirror Emperor, mixed and produced by Stefano Pilia. If last year’s Create Christ, Sailor Boy, the startling Hypnopazūzu album Tibet made alongside Youth, the legendary producer and Killing Joke bassist, was “a transformative union,” the imperial ghost music presented on Mirror Emperor marks a return to their earth . . .

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