Current 93
Experimental musician turned experimental/experimental folk musician, David Tibet is an English musician who records primarily under the name Current 93. Active since 1982, he has worked with such artists as Chris And Cosey, Thomas Ligotti, the Hafler Trio, and Tiny Tim. Recurring themes of his work include theism, gnosticism, (particularly with regards to Christianity) mythology, philosophy, and nihilism.
Current 93 provides examples of the following tropes:
- And I Must Scream[context?]
- Arc Words: "Black Ships", "Menstrual night", "Imperium", "Arise arise, full of eyes, of eyes", "Baalstorm, sing Omega", "Theinmostlight". In other words, loads of them: both arcs within albums and arcs linking albums.
- Drone of Dread: Present in a lot of his stuff.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Black Ships.
- Epic Rocking/Miniscule Rocking: It's not uncommon for both to take place on the same album.
- Everything Is an Instrument/Xenophone: Jerry-rigged Speak-n-toy on I Have A Special Plan For This World.
- Fake Guest Star: Steven Stapleton.
- Genre Roulette
- Ironic Nursery Tune[context?]
- Leitmotif: Shows up in a sizeable portion of his output.
- Looped Lyrics: Common, and in multiple instances, overlapped with BSOD Song or Madness Mantra.
- Lyrical Dissonance: Rather common. Instances include his rousing, upbeat rendition of "Misery Farm" and "The Beautiful Dancing Dust" (from Black Ships Ate The Sky) a calm, sweet piano number about how the listener will soon be annihilated by Eldritch Abominations.
- Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: As a folk singer--he primarily does English or Celtic folk, but will link it together with such things as drone, noise rock and industrial.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The liner notes for Black Ships Ate the Sky.
- Punny Name: Looney Runes. He even played this up by having a pastiche of a Golden Age character on the cover, with the back reading Merry Malaise.
- Rule of Symbolism[context?]
- Sanity Slippage: A recurring theme.
- Scary Musician, Harmless Music: Alternatingly inverted and averted.
- Self-Backing Vocalist