Happy new year to you all

We would like to wish you, as well as those you love and those you hate, a wonderful 2008. Thanks to all of you for your support, and apologies for any delays in orders being processed and/or sent over the recent holidays, which are due to waiting for stock and packaging, the usual slowness of postal services, and our taking a small holiday at Durtro.

Current 93/Baby Dee/Om play London South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall 21 April 2008

Tickets are now on sale for the 21 April concert by C93, Om and Baby Dee at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Marc Almond will be appearing as a guest vocalist, as well as other guests.

Purchase tickets, which are £17.50 and £20. Tickets can also be booked over the phone by calling +44 (0)871 663 2500.

Full line-up of the David Tibet curated Sunday 20 April at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, the Netherlands: Rickie Lee Jones, Baby Dee, Om, Æthenor, Current 93

I am delighted and ecstatic to announce the full line-up of the artists playing at the day I was invited to curate at the Roadburn Festival. Appearing at the show will be: ÆTHENOR, BABY DEE, CURRENT 93, OM and RICKIE LEE JONES. I am so excited! And I am so happy! For more details, and to purchase tickets, go to Roadburn.

Current 93/Rickie Lee Jones/Baby Dee/Om April 2008 dates in Wroclaw (Poland), Moscow, Berlin, Paris and Bourges

We should have full details on the next update of April shows in the above-mentioned cities by Current 93 with Baby Dee and Rickie Lee Jones also playing. Om will be appearing the London and Tilburg shows. I can’t tell you how excited I am about these concerts which will be with some of the artists I most admire. More details on the next update.

Three signed and numbered art prints by David Tibet

• ‘THE BEAST IN THE MIRROR’
• ‘STELLA MARIS, MOTHER OF SEAS AND SHIPS’
• ‘I SEE THE SEA IN A DREAM OF PLANETS’

Three new prints have been made in the series of limited edition art prints of paintings by David Tibet. Each one limited to 108 copies, of which 93 are for sale. These are Giclée prints, printed on high quality 100% cotton rag 308 gsm Hahnemühle paper with light-fast inks. The colours are beautifully vivid and will not fade.

THE BEAST IN THE MIRROR (right) is a Hallucinatory Patripassianist portrait of Aleister Crowley and his doppelgänger—a Lineal Gnostic portrait of two ‘popular’ conceptions of what The Beast is and was. It was commissioned by Jhonn Balance from Tibet several years ago, and after Jhonn’s passing, it found its way back into my collection, thanks to the kindness of Ossian Brown of Cyclobe and Coil.

STELLA MARIS, MOTHER OF SEAS AND SHIPS (left) is the Trance Marine Mother shedding her blueseablood into the water and creating the waves.

I SEE THE SEA IN A DREAM OF PLANETS (right) is a representation of a dream I had in which planets plot sharks and seas and broken words rush for release and rest. The space is empty but intruded by Moon and Sun.

Each print will be signed and numbered in pencil by David Tibet.

Each print is A3 size, 297 mm x 420 mm/11.75” x 16.5”. The prints cost £39.00 each plus postage and packing and VAT (where applicable), and are now available from the Durtro shop. All three prints are available at a special price of £100 plus postage and packing and VAT (where applicable). If the purchaser wishes the print/s to be signed to particular name, please let us know with the order.

These are now in stock at Durtro and ready for mailing.

Current 93 ‘Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre’ CD pressing error on the UK version only

There has been a disastrous error on the pressing of the UK/European edition of the ‘Of Ruine’ CD. All tracks, instead of being cross-faded, have a 2 second gap between them, making the CD completely unlistenable due to the Satanic digital gaps. We will be sending replacement CD discs to all those who have ordered it from Durtro. If you have ordered this from Durtro, please send us an email with DEFECTIVE OF RUINE CD in the SUBJECT HEADER, along with the date of your order, your order number and your address.

This error ONLY occurred on copies manufactured by Southern; so if you look on the back of your digipak in the bottom left hand corner, if it says ‘Made in EU/Manufactured and distributed by Southern Records: http://www.southern.net’ your copy WILL be faulty.

If your copy says ‘Made In Canada/Distributed in North America by Revolver USA: http://www.midheaven.com’ your copy will NOT be faulty and the CD does NOT need replacing.

All of the Southern copies have now been pulled from the shops to have the corrected CD inserted. Southern will be manufacturing the corrected CD this week so we should have it in in a couple of weeks. We are sorry for this error which was not due to Durtro or C93 in any way.

Baby Dee: new live album and Denmark show January 2008

On the 3rd of November 2007, Baby Dee played with John Contreras in front of an invited audience at Oscar Ellingersvej 11 in Frederiksberg, Denmark. The concert was recorded, and has now materialised as the stunning live LP, ‘Love is Stronger Than Death’, which is the first ever Baby Dee release on vinyl. The bulk of the setlist is from the now deleted, much sought-after Baby Dee album/book ‘A Book of Songs for Anne Marie’.

The tracklist is as follows:

Side 1: Set Me as a Seal on Your Arm • A Book of Songs for Anne Marie • Small Wonder • Black, But Comely


Side 2: Lilacs • Endless Night • So Bad • Half a Chance

The record comes in an edition of 1000, of which 500 are on black vinyl and 500 are on purple, and is released on the Bragagild label in January. Cover art by Martin Erik Andersen. Also includes a lyric sheet. The record is part of an installation project, ‘Danskjävlar—a Swedish Declaration of Love’ by Danish artist Martin Erik Andersen, taking place between 12 January and 24 March 2008 at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Denmark. The record release will be marked by a concert with Baby Dee and John Contreras on the 12th of January at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. The rest of the edition will be sold through Bragagild.

The price of the LP will be 130DKK/€17,5/$25 for buying this item plus post and packing. Please contact hildesvin at bragagild dot dk for ordering and exact price including delivery. Wholesale enquiries are welcome.

www.bragagild.dk • www.myspace.com/bragagild

‘Danskjävlar—a Swedish Declaration of Love’

12 Jan 2008 - 24 Mar 2008

Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark

http://www.kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk/event/view/33?lang=eng


www.martinerikandersen.dk

The Baby Dee concert is at 14.30, Saturday 12th January

A Baby Dee concert recorded by Radio France will be exclusively broadcast on January 13th here.

Illegal download sites

We were recently sent an email asking if any of the Durtro artists received royalties from downloading from dubious sites in Russia and elsewhere. Of course we don’t, and such illegal downloads are cutting severely into the income of all artists everywhere, making it increasingly difficult to produce work to the standard we wish. Eventually such downloading will be the death of many smaller-selling artists. Please support the artists and bands you love by buying their work in legal formats, such as on CD or through legal download sites.

‘Inside Solar Lodge, Outside the Law’ by Frater Shiva: a wonderful new book on Solar Lodge and Thelema in the USA

I was recently sent a copy of this book, and found it to be one of the most fascinating works I have ever read on the American occult/magickal underground, and indeed on postwar counterculture. I recommend this book to everyone as a perfectly magical and strange adventure.

Solar Lodge is arguably one of the most interesting and controversial of the many occult groups that sprung up in 1960s America. It was founded by Jean Brayton, a student of Ray Burlingame, who was an initiate of Agape Lodge of Ordo Templi Orientis, and had enjoyed a close relationship—by correspondence—with Aleister Crowley.

For several years Solar Lodge prospered, with the initiatic system it offered—based on a fusion of the teachings of the A.: A.: and O.T.O.—evidently attractive to potential students. It gathered together a small but solid core of initiates, some of whom had enough money to invest in real estate, and give it a solid financial footing that allowed it to establish temples, undertake a small publication programme, start businesses etc. The Lodge also had a superb Crowley reference library, which included a substantial segment of the old O.T.O. archives that they had stolen (they would have said ‘retrieved’) from Karl Germer’s widow, Sascha.

In 1967 Solar Lodge moved its focus from Los Angeles to a plot of land in the desert near Vidal, California. There its members studied, performed their rituals and began building a permanent headquarters.

Then disaster struck. First a massive fire engulfed and destroyed the complex, and then a police raid saw thirteen of the group’s members arrested, with warrants issued against others. The ostensible reason for the arrests was the mistreatment of a child. But it was obvious to all that this was merely a pretext to attack the group, which had attracted the suspicion and wrath of conservative locals.

Most of the senior members of the Lodge fled to Mexico, fearful that they would not receive a fair hearing. In an unfortunate twist of fate, the trials of those who remained coincided closely with the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders, and in the media fuelled hysteria that followed, baseless accusations of connections between Charles Manson and his ‘family’ and Solar Lodge spread widely. The Lodge gained a lasting notoriety.

The author of this book, Frater Shiva, joined Solar Lodge at its inception and rose to a senior position in its ranks before finally leaving at the time of its implosion in 1972.  Inside Solar Lodge, Outside the Law is his reminiscence of life within that group: who they were, how they came together, and what they did and why. As such it gives a rare glimpse into the lives, aspirations and practices of this group of twentieth century magicians, viewed not through the eyes of a historian or sociologist, but from one who was there and a part of it. It also offers, for the first time, a detailed ‘insider’ account of the theft of the Germer library, the ‘boy in the box’ incident, and the alleged connection between the Solar Lodge and the Manson group: all events that have become part of the folklore of American occultism.

This is the first edition of this book, which is a high quality sewn hardcover, 6 1/4” X 9 1/4”, 200 pages, printed on library-quality paper, with 8 page black and white photographic insert, and an index and colour dustjacket. It costs US $45.00 (approx. £22.20/€30.75) plus shipping. It is NOT available from Durtro but from Weiser Antiquarian Books, PO Box 2050, York Beach, ME, 03910-2050, USA. Tel. +1 207-363-7253. It can also be ordered direct via their secure website at www.weiserantiquarian.com or email them at books at weiserantiquarian dot com

More of David Tibet’s record collection on eBay

More of my record collection will be going up on eBay this weekend.

Simply Superior and Andrew McKenzie

Andrew McKenzie and the Hafler Trio have requested that I make this announcement:

www.simplysuperior.org is an attempt, by the Hafler Trio and its esteemed associates, to address the situation with which the marketplace confronts those engaged in the creative act and to equitably deal with interactions there, thus providing an alternative way of approaching the problems and benefits such opportunities offer. Rather than complain about how changing circumstances affect creativity, it is an attempt to create a place where such endeavours can be seen in a new light, and take root in a new soil. Finally, it is also an attempt to repay the debt of being allowed to exist in this fragile system for many years.

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Love to you all,


David+++