Pitchfork

Named for Aleister Crowley's "93 Current," a concept involving the internalization of spiritual change by select men of power, David Tibet's work is loaded with spiritualist references. Revering innocence and darkness, Tibet has also worked his childhood and present relationships into the complex cosmos. According to David Keenan in his excellent book, England's Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of England's Esoteric Underground, Tibet was inspired to take a personal approach to his lyricism after listening to Shirley Collins and reading Pascal and Kierkegaard. As he says, "I didn't want to be involved in anything that wasn't specifically dealing with one's own soul."

His world is peopled with outsider artists like Louis Wain, the fantastical writings of Thomas Ligotti and Count Stenbock, apocalyptic literature (especially Maldoror and William Blake), sleepytime language via Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and musical anomalies like Arthur Doyle and Abner Jay. Despite the cryptic ingredients, Tibet's path is lined with children's toys and The Wicker Man, Blue Öyster Cult and Love, Sand and Six Organs of Admittance. Perhaps the most important (or at least visible) aspect of his poetics is world religion: Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and Paganism. So, yeah, some approach Current 93's output like a graduate seminar. Most, however, attack the allusions intuitively, smoke some cloves and fade into its atmosphere.

Such a rich backdrop could result in stilted stodginess, but Tibet funnels the information through punk roots and a great ear for off-kilter (or off-key) melody. Before founding Current 93 in 1982, he was a member of two jaggedly danceable, wonderfully chaotic industrial groups, 23 Skidoo and Psychic TV, and he incorporates these beginnings into his singular mix of atonal vocalizations, nursery rhymes, spoken word/scream, Incredible String Band pastorals, religious chants, ambient interludes and spot-on traditionals. A constant experimenter, too, he never left behind his more raucous early years completely, apt to unleash extended noise freakouts, blending the shepherd's song with the Downtown.

One of the strongest examples of this teeter between abstract noise and intimate soul-bearing is the epic Thunder Perfect Mind, a dense musical allegory released in 1992. Its title comes from the Gnostic poem, The Thunder: Perfect Mind. (Parts of its text are spoken and snarled by Tibet on the track "Thunder Perfect Mind I".) Interestingly, after Nurse with Wound's Steven Stapleton, a collaborator on almost all of C93's releases, had a dream that his next release would also be Thunder Perfect Mind, he recorded an album of the same name and released it alongside Tibet's. His is droning electronic pulses, tones, twitters-- an ever-escalating loop of frozen machine-age ominousness.

According to David Keenan, Thunder Perfect Mind was originally conceived as a concept album, an "apocalyptic Tommy," in Tibet's words, but he condensed its concepts into the album's opener, "The Descent of Long Satan and Babylon". (You can unpack that one yourself.) Now, though, the record stands as a haunting collection of ballads and laments. Here, the longest and perhaps most complex piece is the 16-plus minute "Hitler as Kalki (SDM)", dedicated to "my father who fought Hitler." Joined by The Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman on psych guitar, Tibet, as Keenan put it, "explores the terrifying idea, first put forward by the Hindu social Darwinist, Holocaust denier and Hitler worshipper Savitri Devi Mukherji ('SDM,' as Tibet refers to her in the title), that Hitler was in fact the final avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu, and the initiator of apocalypse." On it, noodles turn to frantic strumming and acid-jazz wah, culminating in a tripped-out, near-metal feedback solo and after total vocal histrionics, Tibet's ominous whispers.

Less sinister, "A Sadness Song" is melancholy 4AD ethereality. On it, Tibet's imagery and Rose McDowall's background vocals fill the gaps of an existential reminiscence. (The track shows up again as "A Sad Sadness Song", with McDowall alone intoning the tale). Another gorgeous work (and a mind-fuck for its recipient), "A Song for Douglas After He's Dead" was written for Douglas Pierce of Death in June: harp, harmonic guitar, bells, violin, and McDowall spin and sigh behind maniacal incantations. Besides the album, this reissue comes with all the studio outtakes and live, stripped-down variations on songs from the album-- highlighted by two takes of "A Song for Douglas After He's Dead", one hopefully called a "rebirth." Another, "They Return to Their Earth (For My Christ Thorn)" is a 50s prom performed by a Celtic troupe, Tibet presiding over a room of nervous, angelic teens.

Thunder Perfect Mind has long been regarded as an excellent place for uninitiated Current 93 listeners to dive in to David Tibet's 40+ album discography, and though it's certainly not for everyone, it stands as one of the most important works of the last decade. Those who've listened before and couldn't get it the first time, try again. This is the ideal music for contacting, then communing with the most elusive of ghosts.