• Voto:
Pur coltivando un amore incondizionato per la band capeggiata da David Tibet, ho saggiamente evitato, nel corso degli anni, di gettarmi sconsideratamente nell'acquisto di ogni uscita discografica targata Current 93. Come infatti ben sappiamo, Tibet non si è certo dimostrato ingeneroso nel pubblicare ogni cosa gli potesse passare per la testa; però al doppio live “All Dolled Up Like Christ” ci sono particolarmente affezionato, non foss'altro per il fatto che mi si rivelò inaspettatamente in un banchetto nel mercato dell'usato della mia miserabile città. Non proprio una cosa da tutti i giorni.
E “All Dolled Up Like Christ” è davvero un buon prodotto, fra i migliori live editi dalla Corrente nella sua sterminata discografia: non solo riesce a catturare la magia, l'atmosfera, l'afflato spirituale, oserei dire religioso, che sono palpabili durante quella sorta di riti collettivi che sono le performance dal vivo dei Current 93, ma finisce per costituire l'esaustivo compendio di una precisa fase della carriera dei Nostri, un excursus che fra l'altro può fungere da ideale best of per chiunque voglia avvicinarsi per la prima volta a Tibet e compagni.
L'album immortala le due fantasmagoriche serate (la notte di Halloween e quella successiva) che la Corrente tenne nell'ormai lontano 1996 presso la Orensanz Foundation di New York, e ha sostanzialmente il pregio di fotografare la band al culmine del suo splendore folk. E non a caso vengono saccheggiati gli album più significativi di quella felice stagione artistica, ossia “Thunder Perfect Mind”, “Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre” e “All the Pretty Little Horses”, che rimarranno negli anni fra gli album più belli mai partoriti della Corrente e dal genere intero.
In queste due serate, ad accompagnare il buon Tibet, troviamo inoltre i musicisti che più di tutti hanno contraddistinto quella superba fase artistica: cito Michael Cashmore (chitarra), Rose McDowall (canto), Joolie Wood (violino), Karl Blake (basso) fra i nomi più emblematici. Insomma: una scaletta piena zeppa di classici immortali (a cui oggi è proibitivo poter anelare), la formazione migliore possibile, un periodo creativamente parlando irripetibile: cos'altro chiedere? I suoni non sono perfetti, questo è vero, ma sono buoni, più che dignitosi per far sì che i brani si liberino dalle catene imposte dallo studio di registrazione, e possano librarsi nell'aria ruvidi ed incisivi più che mai. L'esecuzione, anch'essa, non è impeccabile, ma anche in questo caso la bontà del risultato non viene inficiata, dato che da un live-album, sostanzialmente privo di ritocchi compiuti a posteriori, è lecito aspettarsi imperfezioni e sbavature.
L'unico vero appunto da fare è che il tutto poteva essere raccolto in un unico supporto, dato che i due tomi presentano scalette pressoché identiche: poco male, come dice il detto “nel più ci sta il meno”, e quindi perché dispiacersi se alla fin fine possiamo disporre di due concerti al posto di uno, magari da ascoltare in momenti separati?
Passiamo finalmente ai contenuti: il canto arcaico di Shirley Collins, come se prevenisse da una vecchia radio scassata, richiama l'attenzione del pubblico in sala; la voce tremula di una bambina, la figlia dello stesso Tibet, introduce l'evento e di poco precede l'ingresso della band sul palco. La chitarra di Cashmore e lo sferzante violino della Wood irrompono fra i parchi battiti di mano, ed è già pelle d'oca. L'irruzione della viva voce di Tibet, sgraziato menestrello dell'apocalisse, è anch'essa da brividi e l'incanto durerà per più di un'ora. E' partita “In the Heart of the Wood” chiamata provvidenzialmente ad aprire “Alpha”, il primo tomo, che, come si diceva, di poco si discosterà dall'altro, denominato ovviamente “Omega”.
I gioielli folk che contraddistinguono “l'età di mezzo” della carriera dei Current 93 sono riproposti assai fedelmente rispetto alle versioni originali, spurgate dalle contaminazioni elettroniche (assente, del resto, il guru dell'elettronica oscura Steven Stapleton), ma rinvigoriti dalla verve interpretativa di un David Tibet in stato di grazia.
I brani si susseguono come in un orgasmo multiplo e continuativo, dal quale svettano in tutta la loro bellezza classici del calibro di “Song for Douglas After He's Dead” e “The Death of the Corn”, quest'ultima ancora più bella dell'originale, impreziosita per l'occasione dallo struggente controcanto della McDowall. Un flusso sonoro che, interrotto di tanto in tanto dai calorosi applausi del pubblico estasiato (in religioso silenzio durante le esecuzioni), riesce ad omogeneizzare i vari concept che hanno originariamente animato gli album. Azzeccata, a tal proposito, la riproposizione in sequenza di “Dormition and Dominion”-“So: This Empire is Nothing”-“This Shining Shining World”, così come accadeva su “Of Ruine of Some Blazing Starre”: un concept nel concept potremmo dire, e questo è solo un esempio di come l'insieme acquisisca coerenza e rinasca a nuova vita. Per il resto le scalette sono ben congegnate, raccogliendo per lo più brani folk e riletture in chiave acustica di pezzi nati sotto il segno del caos (come non citare a tal riguardo la versione acustica di “Horsey” che qui assume le sembianze di un'evocativa ballata di otto minuti abbondanti, suggestiva nella quiete quanto intensa negli impetuosi crescendo: una versione che, anche in questo caso, supera di gran lunga il tripudio elettrico originario).
Se quindi a far da padroni sono i “nuovi” Current, non mancheranno piacevoli escursioni nel passato della band, come i brani pescati dal seminale “Swastikas for Goddy” (la travolgente “Oh Coal Black Smith”, l'alienante filastrocca delle tenebre “Black Flowers, Please”), o le varie “Be”, “Happy Birthday Spooky Moonbeam” e “The Blue Gates of Death”, fra i primi esperimenti folk operati dalla band alla fine degli anni ottanta, qui re-interpretati alla luce di una accresciuta maturità espressiva ed esecutiva.
In entrambi i tomi le vere sorprese vengono tuttavia relegate nei cosiddetti bis, laddove “Alpha” si conclude con una furibonda “Lucifer Over London” (decurtata della cantilenante coda finale, quindi rigenerata in due minuti di punk impazzito e visionario), mentre il commiato di “Omega” è affidato addirittura al tema della misticheggiante “Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow”, perfetto escamotage per salutare il pubblico mentre il gruppo esce di scena.
La messa è finita. Non ci resta pertanto che “agghindarci tutti quanti come Cristo”, premere un'altra volta play ed abbandonarci definitivamente ai fumi spiritici delle Corrente nella sua forma più affascinante e raffinata.
Alpha:
In the Heart of the Wood (And What I found There)
Callingm for Vanishing Faces II
This Carnival is Dead and Gone
The Descent of Long Satan and Babylon
Black Flowers, Please
Be
All the World Makes Great Blood
The Great, Bloody and Bruised Veil of the World
A Song For Douglas After He's Dead
Horsey
Happy Birthday Spooky Moonbeam
Oh Coal Black Smith
Dormition and Dominion
So: This Empire is Nothing
This Shining Shining World
A Sadness Song
Lucifer Over London
Omega:
The Death of the Corn
Calling for Vanishing Faces I
Happy Birthday Peek-a-Moonbeam
Horsey
All the World Makes Great Blood
The Great, Bloody and Bruised Veil of the World
A Song For Douglas After He's Dead
Dormition and Dominion
So: This Empire is Nothing
This Shining Shining World
Oh Coal Black Smith
Black Flowers, Please
When the May Rain Comes
The Blue Gates of Death
In the Heart of the Wood (And What I found There)
A Sadness Song
Christ and the Pale Queens Mighty in Sorrow
Elenco tracce e testi
01 In the Heart of the Wood and What I Found There (03:42)
In the heart of the wood
In the closed forest
Christ appeared to me
In several forms
One two three four
Swastika I'm told
On the Cliffs of Moher
I walk with Mary
Behind the eyes
Of his innocence or guile
The young old man talks
Of the brittle walls
That kept his son
Pinionned pinionned pinnioned
Mary walks on the Cliffs
But not on water
Then Christ appeared as wind
Mary runs down from the highwalls
Christ appears as flowers
Down longpath she walks
Christ appears as the rubble
That holds the stones
That holds the paths
That holds the feet
To the bones of the earth
If she waits
Oh if she wakes
Christ manifests slowly
As the dust on her eyes
Before she falls again
Into fields of sleep
(I would like this anger to dissolve)
And I wait for another
Revolution or revelation
It doesn't too much matter
If I see blood in wheals
"All shall be well" she said
But not for me
Not for me
The skeleton of the universe
Barbed wire of blues and stars
Remains unmoved
When the mother ocean covers me
I rush to drown
With her breakers
"All shall be well" she said
She said
"All shall be well"
But not for me
But not for me
02 Calling for Vanished Faces II (04:16)
If only I could take all of you at once
I would take you for ever and ever and only so
Lose myself in you
And so I smile and skip green god like there
The picture of allrage all lust and wanton
The inmost night
And lay waste to the playgrounds
The concrete covers all
The grass sleeps and waits to rise again
It listens for the final trumpet of
The inmost light
And I clench my left hand
Then I open it
The Gods I loved
Are all dead pages metal signs all gone
Edward Alexander in some sadhome falls alone
And sees clearly now the inmost light
The sadness of the inmost light
The growl the grip an final sigh
Paint by numbers of the inmost light
The plastic form illusion
We just have time to swallow
Before the doorknock of the inmost light
He waits at the door he waits at the door
And if you see me try to grin and then I hide
Myself behind a ball
A sign I wish to play and run hideandseek
The sound is gay and full of joy
It masks the binding of our eyes
The scourge of all the bone fire burns
We hop and skip and trick and treat
Just watch your heart and soul and all
And watch your back
It's waiting there and smiling there
The inmost light
Unforgiving there the inmost night
So broken there the inmost light
Howling
The inmost light
Bad bad bad bad inmost night
04 The Descent of Long Satan and Babylon (02:49)
Long Satan and Babylon are walking
They're talking of fire and of ice
Of the silence that stalks in the forest
And a Christ spun out of the worlds
Long Satan and Babylon are moving
Through a world ripped away from its centre
They shear through the rushes
They follow the night night night night
They want want want want want want
Everything
Long Satan and Babylon are rushing
They are hurtling away
From the centre of things
They are running from the inside
The wind cries full and in them
Cuts through their emptiness
Hoof on stone
Claw against sun
Where to look in an unknown
Where to search in the vast whole
Piggy-back cross oh piggy-black cross
Into the silence thundering
As they only hear the silence
They do not hear the pain
But Christ sees everything
The little children are falling
They'll topple till the end of the world
Long Satan and Babylon keep running
Through a universe empty of sound
Though the world makes dark shadows
You must look in your heart
In the dark
You must look in your heart
07 All the World Makes Great Blood (03:47)
Sorry then bird flight
Passes across my window
Sorry then dog crouches
Under the still sun
Sorry then moi je
Regrette tout ce que
J'ai fait
O le soleil se couche I
Lie me down I lay
With Your body under the
Honeysun
Suckled lovewing mine
You were
I was not yet dressed Tibetan red
And into You, as You'll recall
I fled
The twig-smashed landscape
Is rolling and waving
Wolf wild wide wind walking
Soft smoke star space stalking
This is the comic book end
We have waited for
And not believed in
Oh nearly not at all
Oh nearly not at all
Once when we were young
Oh once we were so young
And the rainways licking the glass
Made us the observers of the distant distance
We there watched the sky's goddy tears
Only once did GoodGod cry black
And then all the clockmovements start
To crick crack crick
By the hairs on my head
By the stare in my eyes
By the pain in my heart
I shall whisper through signs:
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
All this world makes great blood
10 Horsey (08:40)
Horses are riding into her arms
She lost her own way years ago
Her sister calls her from the far side of night
And she falls with that call
The only way out:
She tells me "I love you"
But it's only a game
So she slides from the silence
She's fixing a time
To move back into darkness;
Again with a smile
"Don't touch me - I'm falling"
She laughs in the night
"Don't catch me - I'll return
When the wheel comes around
You see we're all born to suffer
We're all born to fall
In the fading world
That calls us to Zero"
She touches my body;
I crouch up to die
Down the ramblers we're walking;
In Reykjavik, talking
She's reading a book
Finished years ago
She's tearing up paper - she's tearing up life
But she only starts thinking
When her blood is brown
Gold is the colour she promised to wear
But Christ's blood turns black
His body she bears
But she dipped him in water, and she blackened the faith.
It's hard to believe them when they spit in your face
And I don't want to touch you;
I don't want to lie
In the brownredgold slumber
That you've taken to ride
I remember I was thinking only of you
And I built you a playground,
It was built up with crosses.
But you wanted a valley
Where horse could run free
We knew it was over when you stammered out lies
It's hard to keep riding when the world is on fire
It's hard to keep riding when your eyes fill with blood
It's hard to keep riding when your grip has grown slack
It's hard to keep riding when your network is sliding
We were listening to lions at Flantern with James
We were riding the trams to kneel at his wake
Though Christ is impaled through the Cross with His hands
You'd make your own gospel centred on hooves
Christ I was thinking of Your bended arm:
It is blue on the outside; it is blue on the inside
You said as you buckled, as if you would die:
There's no point in living.. there's no point in life
There's spit on the bridle: there's blood in the saddle
And you slip in the shit - you shat in yourself
And Christus is Equus - and Equus is floored
You follow in footsteps made by a flower
Then I wanted to touch you -
But you're destined to fall
12 Oh Coal Black Smith (03:25)
Oh she looked out of the window
As white as any milk
But he looked in the window
As black as any silk
"Hello hello hello hello
Hello you coal black smith
Oh what is your silly song?
You shall never change my maiden name
That I have kept so long
I'd rather die a maid, yes"
But then she said
"And be buried in my grave, yes"
And then she said
"That I'd have such a nasty
Husky, dusky, musty, funky
Coal black smith,
A maiden will I die"
Then she became a duck
A duck all on the stream
And he became a water dog
And fetched her back again
Then she became a hare
A hare all on the plain
And he became a greyhound dog
And fetched her back again
Then she became a fly
A fly all in the air
And he becamee a spider
And fetched her to his lair
And she became a corpse,
A corpse all In the ground
And he became the cold grey clay
And smothered her all around
13 Dormition and Dominion (05:19)
In the mind of god
The dead sleeping lie
And the little cogs though unmoving
Hover over the turning wheel
All life's a farce
The broken bird is draped over the paths
And paths and paths and paths
And those who say this world is not
The bloody gleaming paradise of blood and jewel
Lie
Opal and pearl bloodsocket castings
Ruby jasmine jasper and onyx
Chalcedonthrone and ambergriscrown
Golden green leafwork
Scrolled with the farstars
Pitted with the moonworlds
Mother alldewey
Arrayed with the twinkling lights
The wovengold spungilded blinking godeyes
The spearshafts of heaven
The souldwelling rockhomes
Are...
Dormition and Dominion
Dormition and Dominion
The Mother is dead
The Mother awakens
Dormition
She sleeps
Dominion
He rules
She sleeps and rules
In her starry bodied glory
The Mother sleeps
The Mother loves
Dormition and Dominion
I wait
...Are the holders of the world and its dreams
I say there is no death
No death
We have lived before and shall live again
And again
We have slept before and shall sleep again
We have danced through the shallow pools
And shall rejoice once again
To those who say there is no hope
I say liars
Liars
Liars you are
Over the starry dancing stars
There is a land
Under the sweatribbed brow
There is a land
And this is the globed world of the Pantocrator
Finally I have understood
I have understood
I have understood
Though when I slip sleeping and silently
From this ribbed room of sighs
You shall not find the history of His personal visit
Sewn into my linings perhaps
Nevertheless I have understood
Where the logician watches god hinge all on a die
Nevertheless I have understood!
That all this is the breathbetween moment
Our eyeslids open and close
Between is the land
Between the time I first was accepted
In between Your brightboned body
Between then and there and the time You wept:
"Goodbye my love goodbye to you"
There there was the land
In the pearls of our heart
There is the immaculate heavenly loveland
In the middle of the forest Acton is slain by his own hounds
In the middle of the forestEustace meets the crisscross Stag
There is the land he has reached paradise
There is no death
There is no death
There as the stag turns and smiled loved
There he was takencaught by the prey
All the flowers are blossoming
And all the world calls to you:
"Dormition" - so you sleep
"Dominion" - so you rule
Dormition - oh You sleep, Mother
Dominion - Father, You rule
14 So: This Empire Is Nothing (01:11)
So: this Empire is nothing
Before me the green fields are stretched out
The broken body of a cat glows there
And the shimmering flies fall
This Empire is nothing
I said "I guess this isn't real"
This Empire is not real
I cannot hang words on the Silence
Everywhere God's goldenlight
S. said "You have appeared to me for a reason"
And I said to Her:
"Who do You say I am?"
Like One better before
16 A Sadness Song (04:17)
When we touch the world
And it falls away
When we feel that we're born
Just to fall apart
And our mother lies in state
And the broken pitcher glistens
And the snow is at the window
Creating neither sign nor symbol
And the earth covers earth
And the mud lies in pools
Where the sanddunes stretch unbroken
And the dry wind bends and sighs
And the geese are running harmless
And our desires are running wild
Then we're looking at the smoke
That's rising from the incense
Neither coming here nor going
Neither heaven here nor hell
Neither borning here nor birthing
Neither dying here nor death
And we're wrapped inside our troubles
And we're wrapped inside our pain
And wracked with fires with longing
And our eyes are blind with night
With our fingers clutching coins
And our thoughts burning with I
And our eyes cannot be sated
With the world and its nightmares
With the world and its dreams
Though later they'll be filled
With a small handful of dust
And the Gods appear on the altars
And we recognise their face
It's a face that we have carved there
And it's full of fear and longing
And promises and threats
But they neither stoop to conquer
Not do they stoop to praise
And the mines are void of diamonds
That we carry in our rags
Then all the world seems
A sadness song
And all the world seems
A sadness song
17 Lucifer Over London (03:43)
The twisted wings and clouds unfold
And the greatgape of He who fell
Makes darkened shadows over pointed spires
Little children point and sing
And little children run and dance
Over there the setting sun
And under that the silent stars
And under they the weeping sky
And under Her the laughing world
(Balance sits in western parts
And piles spare Spares in his gabled room)
Great Anarch and Monarch of Not
The Flight of Lucifer over London
And my little grandson
Wrinkled son forehead
All tiny blue pain
As the Mother Blood emerges
Then the Mother Grief
And the Blue Gates of Death
Open armwide
Open teethwide
All dead like the leaves
Old times shiver
Old dead calendar
Past blurred sunsets
Cinders flying in His heart His heart
His fingers punch holes in the sky
(And all the little Christs I count
Are covered in the breathwhite snow
And all the little Christs I call
Are laughing through the green green fields)
Some of those angels have the face of God
And some of them have the face of dogs
(By the Tower of Moad - see the sky's Greenangel form)
And lucifer flickers all around me
His hooded eyes alight
In the smoky musk
Look into Him just a little longer
See the true face of the Moon
So He wheels there through the heavens
His eyes are dotted brightlights
Licked with dust
A golden seabird
Halfdead with spray
His banners broken flags in the wind
Devouring life he breaks at walls
The glint of dead fruits glint
And then the Moon...
And then the Moon...
And then the Moon...
(And sixsixsix
It makes us sick
We're sicksicksick
of 666)
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