Current 93 to Flood Market in 2006

Tibet is famous for producing his industrial-pop on a feast-or-famine basis. Throughout the 80s he routinely released two albums a year, and after slowing down in the 90s, he picked up the pace again in the 00s. He also designed a bottle label for the Absinthe liquor company last year. It wouldn't be a surprise to discover he'd been mixing his booze with Red Bull.

As previously reported, Tibet's label, Durtro, will release the Not Alone benefit compilation for Doctors Without Borders sometime this month through its Jnana imprint. The five-disc set features unreleased music from Antony, Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan, Current 93, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Damon and Naomi, Teenage Fanclub, Matmos, Six Organs of Admittance, William Basinski, Isobel Campbell, and many, many more. But that's just the beginning, according to recent updates on the Durtro website.

January will also bring the release of Whilist the Night Rejoices Profound and Still on Durtro, a re-recording of the 1998 Current 93 album Soft Black Stars with new vocals and arrangements. February will bring the reissue of C93's 2000 album Sleep Has His House. Then, on May 1, Durtro will unleash the new Current 93 album, an 80-minute, 20-track opus entitled Black Ships Ate the Sky. It will be followed by a split 10"/CD between Current 93 and stoner gods OM (featuring ex-members of Sleep), a co-release between Durtro and Neurot Recordings. Another brand new C93 album is also in the works, tentatively scheduled for sometime this summer.

Whew.

As if all that wasn't enough, reissues of a slew of early Current 93 titles, including the 80s albums Nature Unveiled, Dogs Blood Rising, Dawn, and Live at Bar Maldoror are all due from Durtro. Not to mention the book Under the Rain and Teeth of Gods, a collection of Tibet's lyrics, which is scheduled for publication in May.

Tibet has also hinted that the entire Current 93 back catalogue will be available soon on iTunes. Whew again.

Current 93 currently (ha) have one performance scheduled for 2006, an April 9 date in Nantes, France that also includes sets by OM and Six Organs of Admittance. A European tour is in the works for May. Tibet is also set to appear with longtime collaborator Steven Stapleton at the first Nurse With Wound shows in two decades, scheduled to take place at the Great American Music Hall in San Francicso on June 15-17. Writing on the Durtro website, Tibet explains why it took so long for the group to take the stage: "These are the first NWW shows to be announced since their two concerts in the early 1980s, which Steven Stapleton hated so much that he vowed never to play live again. Let's see if it takes us another 20 years or so to get over the assault on our souls this time."

It might take that long for fans to get over the assault on their wallets, too.

Durtro Records: http://www.durtro.com/