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Nodding God: new music from David Tibet and Andrew Liles, a DM premiere
04.25.2019
09:02 am
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Nodding God’s new album (House of Mythology)

Three assenting Pazūzu-heads agree: David Tibet and Andrew Liles’ new album of DayGlo demonology is more fun than a desert wind bearing fevers and plagues! Nodding God Play Wooden Child is the first release from the pair’s new group, which has yet to make its live debut; the Islington Assembly Hall show scheduled for May appears to have been cancelled. Nodding God is as fresh as a daisy.

To be sure, the press materials for the LP claim Liles and Tibet have been working with a third member, The UnderAge Shaitan-Boy, since 1353:

NODDING GOD were formed 666 years ago by Andrew Liles, David Tibet and The UnderAge Shaitan-Boy in a Boys-Only preparatory boarding school in Babylon, since shut down by unfortunate events that took place there, in the night, in the dark.

Tibet’s lyrics for the album are mostly (I hear the Hebrew names of the archangels) written in the ancient Mesopotamian language of Akkadian. Chanted through a pitch shifter over the plashing and gurgling of liquid sequencers and synths, they sound like fearsome invocations of the Great Old Ones, though for all you and I know, they might just as well be sections of the Code of Hammurabi or complaints about the rising price of crisps at Sainsbury’s. Whatever the lyrical content, the effect is the same: discarnate entities awake from their centuries-long sleep, take spectral form in front of your hi-fi, and boogie.

House of Mythology, the London label that has released music by Tibet’s Hypnopazūzu and Zu93 projects, will issue Nodding God Play Wooden Child on pink vinyl, black vinyl, and CD on May 10. The album is available for pre-order from House of Mythology’s US and UK stores. Below, stream Nodding God’s selection for Dangerous Minds, “Natron Skipping Rope.”

The very lovely exhibition Invocation of Almost: The Art of David Tibet is open through May 25 at Cal State Fullerton’s Begovich Gallery.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The thrilling conclusion of Andrew Liles’ 42-hour musical work, ‘Colossus’
Current 93’s David Tibet and Killing Joke’s Youth discuss their first album as Hypnopazūzu

Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.25.2019
09:02 am
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The thrilling conclusion of Andrew Liles’ 42-hour musical work, ‘Colossus’


Andrew Liles by Davide Pepe

Hic Rhodus, hic saltus!

                                    —Aesop (via Erasmus)

Andrei Tarkovsky called his art “sculpting in time,” but Stalker has the brisk pace of a Tom and Jerry cartoon compared to Andrew Liles’ new mega-album Colossus, a 50 LP box set released in digital form. Liles specializes in improving things, and Colossus is bigger and better music. Not only is it superior to other new records, it is superior to the 50 years of pop history it digests. 

Last March, we premiered the first half of Liles’ audio monument to his half-century between heaven and earth: 50 tracks, 50 minutes each, one for every year since 1969. With the arrival of Part Two this month, the 42-hour opus is complete. It’s about three times the length of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, 25 times as long as The Concert for Bangladesh, or 360 times the album version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (irrefragably scrambled in Part One).

The tracks, named after the songs that topped the chart on each of Liles’ birthdays, are original compositions distantly related to the number ones that inspired them—per Liles:

The music is either in the same key or with the same notes played but in a different order, backwards or inverted. Further music and notation has been added by myself. They are absolutely nothing like the originals.

Additionally, the words to the songs are formed from the lyrics to every Number One hit from the last 50 years. But with a twist.

I have adapted the lyrics by using the William Burroughs cut up method and further changed them to make some kind of structure, but they remain predominantly abstract and nonsensical.

Part Two brings us from 1994, represented by Mariah Carey’s “Without You,” to the present, and it is here that Liles really shines, because the hits are so much worse. If you listen to the originals, Celine Dion’s abominable “My Heart Will Go On”—bad enough in 1997-‘98—sounds like a Bach concerto next to what came after: Madonna’s “American Pie,” Westlife’s “Uptown Girl,” Chico’s “It’s Chico Time.” But when pop goes low, Liles goes high. Colossus draws strength from the passage of time that saps and enfeebles the top ten, right through the irresistible one-two combination that closes the album. By the time Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots performs “Shape of You,” named after Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit, and David Tibet narrates “God’s Plan,” after Drake’s supermarket sweep of last year, you may imagine that pop music is Tom Skerritt’s character in Alien, cocooned and begging for death, and Colossus is the muscular, merciful Sigourney Weaver who sets him on fire.

There is a lesson here for despairing pop fans: dross can be transformed into solid gold! All you have to do to make an Ed Sheeran song listenable is remove all of Ed Sheeran’s contributions to it, find a better Edward to sing it, and radically rewrite the music and lyrics. Then set it on fire. You can keep the original title, no problem.

Andrew Liles also recently released The Geometry of Social Deprivation, based on 23 shellac records from the twenties. The first album by Nodding God, Liles’ new group with David Tibet, comes out in May.

Stream Part Two of Colossus below and then buy it from Bandcamp.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Colossus’: Andrew Liles’ 42-hour opus reimagines 50 years of pop, a DM premiere
A half-hour version of Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’ celebrates 30 years of ‘Reign in Blood’
Current 93’s David Tibet and Killing Joke’s Youth discuss their first album as Hypnopazūzu

Posted by Oliver Hall
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03.29.2019
11:19 am
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‘Colossus’: Andrew Liles’ 42-hour opus reimagines 50 years of pop, a DM premiere


Andrew Liles on the cover of his ‘Diario de un Monstruo’ LP, 2017

Sometimes it was a man that sang and sometimes it was a woman, and sometimes the one who sang it did it so well that two or three of the people who were there fell to the ground shrieking and tearing with their hands.
                                        —Arthur Machen, “The White People”

Andrew Liles—collaborator of Nurse With Wound and Current 93, remixer of the Groundhogs, producer, prolific recording artist, “regarded by some to be the funniest man” (Tony (T.S.) McPhee)—turned 49 yesterday, March 11. He marked the beginning of his 50th year by releasing 20 hours and 50 minutes of music: the first half of his new work Colossus, which will eventually comprise 50 tracks of 50 minutes each, one for every year of his life to date.

Each track is named after a song that was number one in the UK chart on Liles’ birthday, and all feature a guest narrator; on Colossus Part One (1969-1993), Liles is joined by members of Faust (Jean-Hervé Péron), the Legendary Pink Dots (Edward Ka-Spel), Renaldo & the Loaf (Brian Poole), Comus (Bobbie Watson, Jon Seagroatt), and Mayhem (Maniac), along with Benjamin Louche, James Worse, Karen Pittis and Steve Pittis. It’s a completely insane vision of 25 years of life and 25 years of pop music, and I loved every single minute.

Colossus is conceptually related to Liles’ “extensions” of classic songs, such as his 50-minute elaboration of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” his 30-minute edit of Slayer’s “Angel of Death,” and, most recently, his 47-minute mix of “When the Levee Breaks.” But, crucially, all the music on Colossus is original work. Liles’ method:

The music is either in the same key or with the same notes played but in a different order, backwards or inverted. Further music and notation has been added by myself. They are absolutely nothing like the originals.

Additionally, the words to the songs are formed from the lyrics to every Number One hit from the last 50 years. But with a twist.

I have adapted the lyrics by using the William Burroughs cut up method and further changed them to make some kind of structure, but they remain predominantly abstract and nonsensical.

 

via Andrew Liles
 
Head above the heavens, feet below the hells, Colossus spans the sublime and the abject. There are passages of exquisite beauty, and there are parts that make your bowels cramp and your teeth hurt. You really have to put in 20+ hours to appreciate its range. On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine anyone’s parole officer, spiritual advisor or grandma objecting to the boys’ choir on “If,” or the tinkling music-box arpeggios that make up the gentler parts of “Chain Reaction.” On the other, the martial pomp and mortal terror of “Wuthering Heights,” the total nightmare James Worse makes of “Chanson D’Amour,” and Brian Poole’s reading of Bread’s “Everything I Own” (number one for Boy George in ‘87) in an industrial setting all demand courage (and probably headphones) on the part of the listener.

There is no useful way to categorize this monstrous, perverse work, which, Godzilla-like, lays waste to all genres, supremely indifferent to their partisans’ cries. For instance: passages in “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” suggest stately art music, the Residents, Goblin, Wendy Carlos, Krautrock, circus organ, David Lynch soundtracks, and power electronics; and yet, somehow, it’s still “Billy Don’t Be A Hero.” The feeling emerges that you’re not listening to the song so much as visiting the mental space from which it originated, skrying the Paper Lace’s stage outfits on the Tree of Life.

Or maybe you’re confronting the shambling, undead specter of the song, as is the case with “Jealous Guy.” Musically, Liles’ composition is more Bernard Herrmann than John Lennon, and the scrambled lyrics, read by Maniac, become like a soliloquy Frankenstein is delivering while he pursues you into the bathroom, arms outstretched:

I mean to hurt you
I made you past control
Beating hurt
I’m mean

I don’t know how to summarize these 21 hours of music except to say that the feeling of being haunted came up repeatedly. On “Wand’rin’ Star” (another Maniac vocal), it’s as if Lee Marvin’s shade is trying to communicate by Ouija board, and he can only use words from his Paint Your Wagon hit, and he does not bring good news.

You should let Colossus transform your life. Let its ominous chords suffuse your changeless routine with dread; let its heroic themes exalt your soul. And be grateful that, at last, there is a version of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” Dangerous Minds readers can be proud to sing at karaoke.

Below is “99 Red Balloons,” Liles’ selection for Dangerous Minds, narrated by James Worse. Get Colossus Part One (1969-1993) on Bandcamp.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
There’s a 50-minute version of the Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ for the song’s 50th anniversary
A half-hour version of Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’ celebrates 30 years of ‘Reign in Blood’

Posted by Oliver Hall
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03.12.2018
10:13 am
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A half-hour version of Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’ celebrates 30 years of ‘Reign in Blood’
10.13.2016
09:46 am
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Reign in Blood, released on October 7, 1986, is the thrash album, and its first track “Angel of Death” is the Slayer song. The lyrics of “Angel of Death” concern the unspeakable deeds of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, but I believe the real subject of the song is Tom Araya’s opening scream: an announcement that the Lord of Misrule is back from summer vacation, “shred-ready,” and about to make some total posers eat his dust. A call to mayhem, its effect on a crowd is instantaneous. Dropping the needle on side one of Reign in Blood can transform your garden party from a summer idyll into a hellscape of exploding crockery, crushed sandwiches, and arterial geysers of tea toot sweet.

Having thrown this number into a few DJ sets at bars, I can tell you that patrons enjoy it a lot more than management does. Its signal to kill and destroy emboldens the laborer and frightens the capitalist. Maybe this is a distinctly Southern California phenomenon. In these parts, when one is behind the wheel of one’s Japanese sedan and “Angel of Death” comes out of the speakers, one simply knows to start shrieking, floor the accelerator, and close one’s eyes (or, I suppose, if you are a person of wealth, whimper, pull onto the shoulder, and call for help).

Thirty years is a long time to be conditioned. By now, reaction to this stimulus is involuntary and probably unconscious, too. I’m not sure what my own Pavlovian response would be if I were at a loved one’s funeral and “Angel of Death” came on, but I would not be surprised to find myself whacking my late friend’s body against a load-bearing wall when the music ended and the fog lifted.
 

 
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Reign in Blood, the musician and producer Andrew Liles has created a 30-minute version of this monster song. The original was only 4:52. A simple calculation will demonstrate that your new best friend Andrew Liles just made “Angel of Death” six times better for free. It’s the latest in what Liles calls an “ad hoc series of massive extensions of classic tracks.” Like his previous creations, “45 Minutes of Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath for 45 Years” and the Motörhead tribute “Overkill Overkilled by Overkill,” the extended “Angel of Death” is longer than the album on which it first appeared. I can’t help you interpret Liles’ main addition to the track, a female vocalist speaking in German. A non-Germanophone, I can only make out the part where she’s saying “Angel of Death” over and over; as far as I know, the rest of what she’s saying is as likely to come from Sing mit Heino as Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.

Hear it after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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10.13.2016
09:46 am
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When Tiny Tim met Current 93, Nurse With Wound, and ‘the Antichrist’
08.12.2016
09:24 am
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Cover art for Tiny Tim’s Songs of an Impotent Troubadour by Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound

Another one of those things they don’t teach you in school: Current 93 and Nurse With Wound collaborated with Tiny Tim on a song called “Just What Do You Mean by ‘Antichrist’?”

David Tibet’s Durtro label released a few Tiny Tim albums. The first of these was Songs of an Impotent Troubadour, a career-spanning collection of solid gold Tiny Tim hits like “I Used To Love Jessica Hahn, But Now I Love Stephanie Bohn,” “Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS This Year,” and “She Left Me with the Herpes.” “Just What Do You Mean by ‘Antichrist’?” ended the album; it consisted mostly of those TG-style glissandi that make your intestines cramp a bit, laid over a tape collage of Tibet and Tiny’s phone conversations about the latter’s bizarre eschatological views.
 

Cover for the Durtro release of Tiny Tim’s Christmas Album
 
The definitive book about the Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound gang, England’s Hidden Reverse, reports that Tiny Tim’s crackpot opinions about gay people provided the occasion for a break between Tibet and his close friend, Douglas P. of Death in June:

Not everyone in the Current circle swooned before Tiny Tim’s bigheartedness. Douglas Pearce took his views on homosexuality as an excuse to irrevocably cut all ties with Tibet, on the grounds that friendship with both Tiny Tim and himself was incompatible.

Tibet had become obsessed with Tiny Tim in the mid-90s after listening to his work on the recommendation of Boyd Rice. And it was Rice who suggested Tibet call Tiny up:

On Rice’s suggestion, Tibet made contact through Big Bucks Burnett, who ran Tiny Tim’s fan club. To his surprise, Burnett suggested that Tibet call Tiny right away, as he loved to talk on the phone. It was the start of a beautiful long distance telephone relationship. ‘I rang up his hotel, where he had checked in under the name Peter Poker,’ Tibet recalls. ‘Straight away he was like ‘Hi, Mr. Tibet, nice to speak to you, have you got a girlfriend? What does she look like?’ His phone calls always lasted at least an hour.’ Tibet and Tiny Tim only met once, when he flew over to play at London’s Union Chapel in 1995, in a mismatched lineup that featured Red Dwarf‘s Norman Lovett and Al Murray, ‘the comedy landlord’. As a result, Time Out listed the concert in their comedy section.

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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08.12.2016
09:24 am
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