ALMOST IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE

MURDERER

‘Invocation of Hallucinatory Mountain’: part 1 of the new trilogy by Anok Pe Current 93 on Coptic Cat

I am VERY delighted to announce that we have almost finished recording the material for part 1 of Anok Pe Current 93’s new HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN trilogy. I am listening to the rough mixes as I type this update.

Part 1 is entitled INVOCATION OF HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN, and is the precursor to part 2, ALEPH AT HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN (which is the album that has been available from the shop as a subscribers’ edition for some months.) INVOCATION OF HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN sets the scene and describes the birth of ALEPH.

INVOCATION OF HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN features seven new tracks, and the lineup which has recorded so far is: John Contreras, Baby Dee, Andria Degens, Andrew Liles, Alex Neilson, David Tibet and Keith Wood. We are also waiting for William Breeze, Ossian Brown, Matt Sweeney and Andrew W.K. to finish their work on the album. This will be one of the first releases on our new COPTIC CAT label (see below for more details).

We expect the album to be released as a digipak and vinyl album in mid-November. I can’t tell you how happy I, and all of us, are with this album. It is the first album by ANOK PE CURRENT 93 and it has captured exactly what I hoped it would. More details as to cost and exact release date as soon as we have them.

‘Invocation of Hallucinatory Mountain’ book/CD

Coptic Cat will also be releasing a beautiful hard-bound book of the 50 verses of David’s entire text of INVOCATION. 64 pages long and printed on a heavy, off-white paper with full colour endpapers featuring two new paintings by David of the Hallucinatory Mountains. Book-ribbon, blocked front and back cover and spine. Limited to 333 copies, this is the most exquisite book we have yet produced. Each copy will come with a CD of three or four demo versions of tracks from the album with Tibet’s guide vocals. This CD will NOT be available for purchase separately.

‘Invocation of Hallucinatory Mountain’ voice/electronics/drums version CD

David, Andrew Liles and Alex Neilson have also recorded a 20 minute version of the spoken text of the 50 stanzas of INVOCATION. This will be available as a mid-price CD in digipak. The piece is 20 minutes long and quite unlike anything C93 have done before.

Soon available from Durtro: official downloads of the entire Current 93 and Pantaleimon catalogues

We have hooked up with State 51/Greedbag — who are also responsible for Threshold House and Blast First’s online shops, amongst many others. They will be taking over the processing of orders in the Durtro online shop, though we wish to emphasise it is still Durtro who will post the items out. This shop becomes active on 1 September.

Our linking up with State 51/Greedbag will mean that all of the C93 and Pantaleimon back catalogue which is presently in the shop as physical items will be made available as MP3 and FLAC downloads.The most exciting part is that over the coming months the new Durtro Records shop will be making available, as digital downloads,many out-of-print items too. We also hope to add many live shows by C93 that we have performed from 1984 till the present.

Durtro Jnana says “Sleep!”. Coptic Cat says “Wake up!”

We have begun a new record label and book imprint, COPTIC CAT. This has also entailed our re-thinking of Durtro Jnana.

David, Mark and Andria, who run Durtro Jnana (DJ) between them, have thus made some difficult decisions as to the future of DJ.

Our workload has increased to the extent where we have decided that DJ must sleep for a very long time. We will release the CDs we have committed to release on DJ: albums by Chris Connelly, Othon Mataragas, Plinth and Vera Sazhina.

We will also keep the majority of DJ back catalogue in print, especially the material by Michael Cashmore, Current 93 and Pantaleimon, and DJ will continue being the label which reissues back catalogue by these artists.

However, all new material by Current 93 will be released on our new label, COPTIC CAT. COPTIC CAT will also release material by artists who are intimately connected to Anok Pe, David Tibet, Current 93 and all those whom we consider to be our family with the exception of Pantaleimon who will be moving in many other directions, whilst continuing to work with us all.

Durtro and Durtro Jnana have been going for so long that we have lost count of the number of years. Thank you for your support and kindness over those years.

Please note that this change ONLY applies to Durtro Jnana, NOT United Jnana, who will continue to release material by NWW.

Imminent and forthcoming releases on Coptic Cat

As we previously mentioned, there are many releases lined up for Coptic Cat in the remaining months of 2008. We just wish to mention again what is planned, although full details will follow when the item is in stock or just before it arrives.

Birth Canal Blues hand-printed book/live CD

This is a hand-printed book, made by Antonio Contiero, who produced Pantaleimon’s lovely Peeling Oranges Into Flowers book/CD a couple of years ago. It is the special edition of the BIRTH CANAL BLUES LIVE CD. The edition is of 200 copies, all of which have a colour frontispiece of a painting by David entitled Birth Canal Blue. 100 of which have a cream/off-white cover, and 100 of which have a scarlet cover. Durtro will have 75 copies only of each edition to sell.

Each copy comes with a CD of a live recording of C93′s performing their seminalBIRTH CANAL BLUES from one of the shows on their recent Tiny Tour of Europe. The line-up was: Bill Breeze, David Tibet, John Contreras, Baby Dee, Alex Neilson, Matt Sweeney, Andrew W.K., Keith Wood. More details and price when it is stock. I haven’t yet decided which recording I will use, though it will probably be Wroclaw. About 300 copies of this live CD will also be available as a simple jewel-case CD; see next entry below for details. We estimate this book/CD will cost somewhere in the region of £35/£40. More details when it is in stock.

Anok Pe Current 93 Birth Canal Blues studio/live 12″ vinyl

500 copies will be made of a 12″ vinyl on black vinyl with a 3D cover and free 3D printed viewing glasses. One side features the studio demo version of BIRTH CANAL BLUES previously released on CD, and the other side features a live version from the April 2008 tour, which will probably be taken from one of the shows at Berlin’s Volksbühne theatre. More details and price when it is stock.

Bill Fay: The Coptic Cat Collection

I have been an obsessive admirer of Bill Fay since Jim O’Rourke introduced me to his work many years ago, and Michael Cashmore too reacted with an equivalent admiration to Bill’s work. We have since become good friends with Bill, and are delighted to announce that Coptic Cat will be releasing a 3CD set titled, at Bill’s request, ‘THE COPTIC CAT COLLECTION’. We expect this to come out as a 6-panel digipak — similar to C93′s ‘The Inmost Light’ trilogy, and the large booklet contains an extensive essay written by Bill especially for this release, lyrics and photographs. This 3CD set includes the following CDs:

1. THE COMPLETE DERAM RECORDINGS 1967 - 1971 All the material Bill released with Decca/Deram: ‘Bill Fay’, ‘Time of the Last Persecution’, and his sole single, ‘Some Good Advice’/'Screams in the Ears’. 80 minutes long.
2. PIANO, GUITAR, BASS AND DRUMS 1970 - 1971 demo and live material from 1970 and 1971. 52 minutes long.
3. STILL SOME LIGHT: HOME-RECORDED ALBUM 2008 Bill’s new album, recorded at hime. 37 minutes long.

PLEASE NOTE: BILL FAY AND COPTIC CAT will be giving ALL their profits from this album to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. As many of you know, the benefit album that Durtro Jnana did for DWB/MSF, NOT ALONE, has to date raised approximately UK £17,200 / €21.800 / US $32,000 for the charity.

Brother Focus: Songs for Kenneth Anger

David and Bill Breeze are still working on this double CD album. More details as and when we have them.

Don Bradshaw-Leather: Distance Between Us

We are still planning to release this album but it is taking longer than we had hoped due to some of the Bradshaw-Leather family moving home. More details as and when.

Under the Rain and Teeth of Gods: David Tibet’s lyric book

Despite my hope (and promise!) that this would be out in November 2008, and despite the fact that David is working on it with 3 friends (Ayse Tuzlak, José Pacheco and Nidge Ince), David’s workload means that he has again had to shift its publication date forward to David’s birthday on 5 March, 2009. Once again, apologies. Of course we are still delighted to offer refunds to anyone who desires one. It will be worth the wait, we hope. Thanks for your patience.

Count Stenbock: The Collected Works

Another Coptic Cat publication I am working on brings together all the material Durtro Press published by Stenbock, as well as two other previously unpublished stories, ‘Tristan and Isolde’, a tragedy, and an incomplete and unfinished lost-race story, ‘The Introduction and Narrative of Sosthene’. The Durtro editions have been sold out for many years and are often prohibitively expensive if bought from dealers.

The book will include a new introduction by myself. At one stage I had intended to write a short biography of the Count, including much new information, as well as letters and other writings of his, such as his French language play, ‘La Tentation de Saint Antoine’, and other fragments, including some dramatic scenes in German, but I no longer have the time due to my endless Coptic studies, which have removed any spare hours I had which were not spent on recording, writing and painting which, once upon a time, I could have spent working on Stenbock.

It is 12 years since Durtro Press published our first Stenbock volume, Studies of Death, and I truly hope that someone will come along who will publish a definitive study of the life and writings of this great and misunderstood artist, but it is likely that this volume will be my last publication on or by the Count, unless something truly extraordinary turns up.

What the volume will contain, then, is as follows:

1. COLLECTED POEMS: His three volumes, Love, Sleep and Dreams; Myrtle, Rue and Cypress; The Shadow of Death.
2. COLLECTED PROSE:
   1. STUDIES OF DEATH: Hylas, Narcissus, The Death of a Vocation, Viol d’Amor, The Egg of the Albatross, The True Story of a Vampire, The Worm of Luck.
   2. CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICALS: The Other Side
   3. TRANSLATIONS FROM BALZAC: Christ in Flanders, A Passion in the Desert.
   4. POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED PROSE: The Child of the Soul, La Girandola, A Modern St. Venantius, The Story of a Scapular, The Myth of Punch, Faust, A Secret Kept, La Mazurka des Revenants, The King’s Bastard, Tristan and Isolde, The Introduction and Narrative of Sosthene.
3. INTRODUCTION BY MYSELF

We are still unsure as to whether to make this volume a paperback or hardback. Perhaps we will do both. I am hoping to include images of the front covers of all of his first editions in the volume, as well as facsimiles of his written dedications and letters.

Nick Blinko: The Haunted Head

By the time you read this, I will have met Nick Blinko and his representative Henry Boxer to go through the original pieces of his artwork to choose those we will be putting in the limited edition of his Coptic Cat novel. Nick’s novel is imminent in its beautiful, strange and eloquent beauty!

David Tibet’s artwork featured in the ‘Eloquent Obsessions’ art exhibition, London

David has five of his older paintings — including ‘Chewing on Shadows’ which was used for the cover of ‘SOFT BLACK STARS’ as well as his Hallucinatory Stereo portrait of Aleister Crowley, ‘The Beast in the Mirror’ — on display at ‘Eloquent Obsessions’, an exhibition at Twickenham, London. The exhibition runs from 30th August - 19th October 2008 at the Orleans House Gallery, Riverside,Twickenham TW1 3DJ. Its opening hours are: Tuesday to Saturday 1 - 4.30pm, Sunday and Bank Holidays 2 - 4.30pm. The organiser’s description for the exhibition runs thus:

Exhibiting some of the most remarkable outsider and visionary artists, Eloquent Obsessions is a collaboration between Orleans House Gallery and the Henry Boxer Gallery. Amongst the 25 internationally recognised artists on display, highlights will include a group of extraordinary works by the enfant terrible of the outsider art world, Henry Darger (1892 - 1973). Also showcased are artists from the Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic in Austria, classicEnglish outsiders Scottie Wilson and Madge Gill, and animportant collection of schizophrenic watercolours by celebrated Edwardian cat artist Louis Wain, painted during his last years at Napsbury asylum in the 1930s.

Several Louis Wain pieces from David’s collection are included, among them the one which was featured on the cover of ‘Where the Long Shadows Fall’.

For more details: click here

‘Soft Black Stars’ reissued on Durtro Jnana

Previously the expanded edition of this CD had been on Durtro’s USA label, DurtroUSA, but this has now had a UK edition on Durtro Jnana. The details are as follows:

This is a 6 panelled full colour digipak release of one of Current 93’s most haunting, personal and enduring albums. This album was originally released on Durtro in 1998. It was recorded live in a small cottage in Ireland with David Tibet on vocals, Maja Elliott on piano and Petr Vastl on ghost violin; Michael Cashmore and Steven Stapleton were also present as and in the group, and it was mixed in Germany by Christoph Heemann.

This expanded reissue contains the entire album as originally released on CD, as well as the alternate mix of ‘Chewing On Shadows’ that was used on the double vinyl LP edition, as well as a previously unreleased acoustic version of the same track. It features six colour paintings by David Tibet.

Tracklisting: Judas As Black Moth • Larkspur And Lazarus • A Gothic Love Song (For N.) • Mockingbird • Soft Black Stars • It Is Time, Only Time • AntiChrist And Barcodes • The Signs In The Stars • Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still • Moonlight, And Other Dreams, And Other Fields • Judas As Black Moth II • Chewing On Shadows PLUS Chewing On Shadows (vinyl version) • Chewing On Shadows (unreleased acoustic version)

We expect to have this in stock in 2 - 3 weeks. More details when it is in stock.

Nature Unveiled and Dogs Blood Rising vinyl reissues

Also imminent are vinyl facsimiles of Current 93’s first two albums, NATURE UNVEILED and DOGS BLOOD RISING, both recorded in 1984. Each album comes with a facsimile of the original insert, as well as a facsimile of the NO HIDING FROM THE BLACKBIRD (in NATURE UNVEILED) and the REAPING TIME HAS COME (in DOGS BLOOD RISING) posters, which were printed in very limited promotional amounts when the albums were originally released. NATURE UNVEILED also contains a facsimile of the original C93/Nurse With Wound 7″ that came with the first 1000 copies of the albums. Details on price as soon as we have a definite delivery date.

New Durtro Jnana reissues by Current 93

As mentioned above, reissues of earlier C93 material will continue to be on Durtro Jnana. The next three releases are now almost ready, and will be: LIVE AT BAR MALDOROR, DAWN and IN MENSTRUAL NIGHT. The first 1000 copies come with an additional CD of remixes by Andrew Liles of the entire album, and the booklets feature early archive photographs. More details when the release date is finalised.

Organic cotton Current 93 carrier bags

David has designed some C93 organic cotton carrier bags, made at a Fair Trade factory in India, and featuring a C93 logo as well as Coptic text. There will be 200 copies of each design, which are presently being printed. More details when we have them.

David Tibet on front page of Leipziger Volkszeitung

I recently attended the 2nd International Summer School of Coptic Papyrology in the beautiful city of Leipzig. There were various groups, working on an early version of the Gospel of Mark as well as documentary letters. In the group I was in I, and other students, were working under Professor Stephen Emmel on a previously unpublished vellum codex of the Martyrdom of the Coptic Saint Apa Prau. The local paper came in to do a small feature and took a photo of me examining one of the leaves. I look remarkably like ET, one of the students remarked, which I put down to the high-powered magnifying visor I was wearing, and the angle of the photograph, and not down to my genes. For those wanting to see a scan of myself manifesting as a papyrological ET, go here.

The caption underneath can be translated as follows:

What could be meant by this? In the library of the University of Leipzig, the English researcher David Tibet tries to decipher fragments of text about the Egyptian saint Apa Prau. His most important work tools are his magnifying glasses, whether on his head or in his hand. He is one of twenty academics from all over the world who are in Leipzig learning to read the contents of old papri. The week-long course was organised by the library and the Egyptian Institute.

Pantaleimon news

A Pantaleimon hour long feature/interview with Keith Hadad is being aired on Dynamic Independent Radio in Rochester NYC. Andria writes, “It was my first radio interview so please excuse all my ‘ums’ in the first half”. It is being repeated on these days and times over the month of August, but please remember these are New York times, which is 5 hours behind GMT:

August 22nd: 16.00

August 26th: 07.00

The easiest way to find Dynamic Independent Radio Station is directly in iTunes: go to Radio > Rock > Dynamic Independent Radio. Or here’s the link: www.wdyn.net/listen.html

There are seven different ways to tune in: just click on any of the given choices, such as Windows Media Player or Real player etc, and it’ll be streamed from there.

Andrew W.K. announces his first visit to the UK as a motivational public speaker

On the evening of Friday 19th September 2008, Mr W.K. will be giving a one-off, stream of consciousness address to an intimate audience at Madame JoJo’s, Brewer Street, London. After recent lectures at Yale, NYU, and Northeastern, this is the first time he’ll bring his talk to the UK.

For details: www.abeano.com/blog/andrew-wk-is-back

For tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/34325

Teitan Press: my favourite press

Some of you may remember my excitement at Teitan’s book on the Solar Lodge; here are two more classics from them which I recommend . To purchase them, and for a longer description, go to their website www.teitanpress.com

HOCKLEY, Frederick (Transcriber) Edited by Dietrich Bergman. A Complete Book of Magic Science Containing the method of constraining and exorcising spirits to appearance, the consecration of Magic Circles, and The Form of a Bond of Spirits Transcribed From An Ancient Manuscript Grimoire. Teitan Press, 2008. Hardcover. Small 8vo. 136pp. Bound in high quality black cloth, with a gilt sigil stamped on the front cover, and gilt title etc. on the spine. Numerous black and white reproductions of sigils, Hebrew letters, etc. in the text. Color frontispiece and a 16 page color insert reproducing the original colored illustrations of sigils, seals, magical tools, etc. The frontispiece and color insert are printed on special coated paper stock, allowing for better quality reproduction than on normal uncoated paper. Limited to 450 numbered copies. Until this printing, the grimoire has existed only in manuscript form apparently derived from “an ancient Latin manuscript,” said to date from 1519. The work is clearly related to the book known as ‘The Secret Grimoire of Turiel,’ although it is lengthier and contains much additional material. One of Hockley’s manuscript copies, complete with beautiful color drawings of the sigils, magical circles etc., was recently discovered, and it is from this Hockley manuscript, that the Teitan Press edition has been prepared. This First Edition of the ‘Complete Book of Magic Science’ faithfully reproduces the text and diagrams of Hockley’s manuscript. It is prefaced with an Introduction by Dietrich Bergman, who has also carefully analyzed the text in comparison to that of ‘The Secret Grimoire of Turiel,’ and annotated it accordingly. $50.00

PARSONS, John W. [ Jack Parsons ] Edited and with a Foreword by Hymenaeus Beta. Three Essays on Freedom. Teitan Press, 2008. Hardcover. Octavo. 88pp. bound in high quality black cloth, with silver gilt title etc. to the spine, and striking black and white dustjacket featuring a seldom seen photograph of Parsons on the front. Black and white frontispiece portrait photograph of Parsons. Limited to 418 numbered copies. In addition to being a loyal devotee of Crowley’s creed of Thelema, Jack Parsons was a staunch libertarian who vehemently opposed racism, the suppression of women, religious intolerance, sexual repression and anything else that diminished the rights of the individual. This book comprises three essays by Parsons: the never-before published “Freedom is a Lonely Star,” his better known work “Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword” (previously published only in softcover) and a short piece entitled “Doing Your Will” (previously published only in a limited-circulation journal). Three Essays on Freedom not only delivers a blistering attack on authoritarianism, but also offers a well thought out vision of a society in which each was free “to do his or her will,” in accordance with the higher ideals of Crowley’s Thelema. $45.00

Favourite books and musics of the moment

JOSHUA BEN JOSEPH: One of my favourite recently-discovered, at least by me, artists at the moment is Joshua Ben Joseph:www.myspace.com/joshuabenjoseph. I love his work, and recommend you check out his work on his MySpace. This is a great and powerful artist; I am really excited by his truth.

HUSH ARBORS forthcoming album — released 21 October on Ecstatic Peace — is BEYOND perfect and is on super-heavy rotation at the Tibet/Degens household, as is the new OM 7″ on Sub-Pop. I am also listening to Oum Kalthoum a lot, and of course Judas Priest.

I have also been listening a lot to PANTALEIMON’s last two releases. The remix album of her songs, with beautiful and completely unpredictable re-visionings by people like Andrew WK, Fabrizio Palumbo, Stephen O’Malley, CarterTutti, Fovea Hex and so on is truly stunning. I know I am biased, and why shouldn’t I be. But to be honest, I think that her new EP, TALL TREES, is her finest and most haunting work to date. This is available at www.abatonbookcompany.com

My favourite newly-discovered writer at the moment, outside the world of Coptic, is Brett Easton Ellis. I absolutely love this writer! I had read his American Psycho many years ago, but had not read anything else until recommended to by Tartarus Press’s Ray Russell.

But the book I have most loved reading recently is Michel Faber’s The Fire Gospel. It isn’t published until November but Michel kindly sent me a copy, and this book is a remarkable accomplishment. I can’t say how much it touched me — it is funny, pitiless, compassionate and really quite terrifying.

Thanks and peace and love to you all,

Anok Pe David Tibet+++