From this month's Wire interview with David Tibet
 

The live group centres round the similarly prodigious Ben Chasny(Six Organs of Admittance) and cellist John Contreras,both of whom are key contributors to the new album,as is Tibet's regular foil,Steven Stapleton of Nurse with Wound.After the skeletal intimacy of the last two 'full' Current 93 albums,Sleep has his house(2000) and Soft Black Stars(1998),the new release sees Tibet re-introducing greater thematic complexity and textural richness into his ouvre,wich had perhaps been in danger of being stripped down to oblivion.As with the best Current 93 work,it draws on private dream imagery,declamations of deeply held beliefs and allusions to arcane theology.The apocalyptic metaphor of the black ships literally devouring the heavens came from a recurring nightmare of Tibet's,and both the individual musical settings and the careful architecture of the album bring the theme to terrifying life.

Excellent. I was listening to C93 only earlier today (All the pretty little horses). I've heard nothing but raving reports about the new one - most surprisingly, it seems to be quite popular with the previously sceptical. I suspect I'll buy this 'un before I buy the new SY...

Gret pictures too.Last night i put on 'Sleep has his house'(and my,do i love that record) and when this morning i went to my local newsagent to buy the paper he said to me:''The new Wire is just out''.I turn round and Tibet is staring at me.What better way to start the day?

I'm waiting for that to happen with ME Smith at some point. He usually wakes me up. Today's albums: Oxymoron & Middle Class Revolt.

I'm excited.
Soft Black Stars was too piano/voice oriented for my taste, but this one sounds like it's gonna be great!

Could someone please transcript the Global Ear part from this issue? It's about the free music explosion in hasselt, Belgium. I've been
(video)documenting this shit since November last year. I'd love to hear what's stated in this issue about that incredible exposure of free music we've been getting here.

If you give me a little time i'll do it even if in stages.The scanner is broken at the moment so i have to type manually.

No hurries at all. It's nice to see this city get some rep!!

thank u porkmarras!

''Black ships is myself caught up in the drama of the end of time.Because it has all these different strands of lyrical concerns,i wanted to make it a very full and shifting record.'' he says.''It builds up to the title track,wich is this remorseless grind,there's no space left.The time for looking for salvation is over.All i have left now is myself.And i'm in a prison,the prison of being cut off from all possibilities.The grinding chords are the bars.It works really well live.It's very oppressive.''

An important factor in how Black Ships Ate The Sky attained its final form was Tibet's obsessive study of the Biblical optic language,wich relates to both Ancient Greek and Egyptian.''Sometimes things just grab me with extreme force and i lose myself,'' he explains.''I've had a vague interest in Coptic and other Biblical languages for several years.I was reading the Gospel of Thomas and i came to the line,'Jesus said,Lift up a stone and ia m there.'And i had a bolt of electricity down my back.I just thought,'I've got to read that in Coptic,to try to fully understand what it means'.''He's keen,however to stress tha the album should not be taken as a kind of Tales from Coptic Oceans.