CURRENT 93 & NURSE WITH WOUND: BRIGHT YELLOW MOON

Current 93 has collaborated many times with "Nurse with Wound" and with "Bright Yellow Moon", it happens again, this time for a full album. The lyrics in this one were written by David Tibet while he was recovering from a near death experience with appendicitis. While in the hospital, Tibet claims he had visions of the angel of death, and thus wrote the lyrics based on those visions. Steve Stapleton (Nurse with Wound) and Michael Cashmore are along to help out with this dark album.

"Butterfly Drops" is a short introductory piece with an acoustic guitar and spoken word from Tibet.

On the opposite end of the time scale, the next track exceeds 17 minutes total with the track "Disintegrate Blur 36 Page 03". This one starts slowly in dark ambience with softly ringing cymbals, minimal bass and guitar. Soon, Tibet starts singing softly in his unique singing/speaking voice. The cryptic vocals are easy to discern, but hard to understand. This continues meandering as such for the entire duration. Move along, not much to hear here.

Next is "Mothering Sunday (Legion, Legion)". A carnival type organ plays and fades out quickly while Tibet's spooky spoken word with scary sound effects. This is perfect for Halloween entertaining. "Nichts" begins with the phrase that ended the previous track "Your time is mine" which fades out to the sound of a railroad train, which in turn morphs into a noise drone. This all turns into repeated spoken phrase loops and processed noises forming a collage.

"Die, Flip or Go to India" begins with ambient synths and processed atmospheric sounds. Processed spoken word vocals start at 7 minutes as the minimalist noises and voices effects continue. When it all ends after 11 minutes is the highlight of the track. The last track on the original album is "Walking Like Shadow". This is another minimal acoustic track with Tibet's singing/speaking vocals.

The Special Edition of the album contains 4 bonus tracks which were outtakes. It starts with a continuation of the previous track "Walking Like Shadow II". This continues with the same feeling as the first part, but much clearer this time. "Disintegrate 36 Page 00" is more minimalist instrumental sounds this time for over 7 minutes. "Nichts II" returns to the noise collage of the first one, it just pretty much fades in where the other one left off. "Disintegrate 19 Page 03" is more like an industrial style of minimal experimentation. A little more interesting, at least if you are still awake.

This one is not quite as intriguing as others in Current 93's discography. Its not that it's experimental or minimistic, it's just not that interesting. But with Tibet, its always hit or miss, sometimes its great and other times its "meh". This one resides in the "meh" category.