Search - Current 93 :: Soft Black Stars

Soft voices, black pianos but only 3 stars

Kjetil Aasland | Oslo Norway | 07/13/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"with Soft Black Stars, Current 93 have released their most low-key album to date. Throughout the album, Tibets soft, almost whispering vocals are accompanied chiefly by a lone piano. The result is an album of consummate compactness, but lacking in vitality. Steven Stapleton's influence is sorely missed. To anyone unfamiliar with Current 93, and in search of an album to serve as company during long autumnal nights of introspection and solitude, this is a good purchase. In my opinion, however, it remains one of the less essential Current 93 albums."

Often misunderstood

Z. Komar | Croatia | 08/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"many people seem to want another nature unveiled or thunder perfect mind or some other great c93 album repeated. i find that possible only if c93 is superficially understood, so one doesn't see the substance of current's work and that is a specific spiritual life made manifest through expression in the broadest sense of the word. expression can be a hum, a whisper, words, noise, melody, guitar, piano...: when music is considered - anything audible, even lack of sound - silence. this work is not even a bit less expressionistic than nature unveiled and far more expresionistic than thunder perfect mind for example (i'm comparing to these particular records not because i think they're most important, but because most of people glorify these records). therefore, i do not find it possible to separate current's "soundscapes" from "apocalyptic folk" from "minimalist piano work" etc. as long as the music is expressionistic, free and full of meaning. (i find terms like "soundscapes" and "apocalyptic folk" silly, but i'm using them for practical reasons).



inner life of current's music is consistent and honest evolution of spirit, and all their records come from heart. music itself is just an outside form that this inner life takes. so i find criticism like "the sound is lacking" or "it isn't nature unveiled" just superficial and completely beside the point. many people here have written about what this record IS NOT, but at the same time they are blind for what this record IS. i don't see what's the point in writing such reviews.



i don't think there are "tracks" that can be separated one from another here as well, because this album works as a whole perfectly, the tone is the same from beginning til the end, but not "boring", "lacking" or "monotonous" - it is modest, honest, introspective and meditative. the sheer, bare honesty of tibet's vocal and of the atmosphere that music creates here is absolutely stunning.



plus, "a gothic love song" is a manifest, it's a war against pose, vanity and pettiness present in so many people involved with this "scene" today (although there is no "scene" at all, only inside of heads of those same people). it's not just a song, it's a course in life being taken, it's a general attitude. and that is why this song is important, not because it's "pretty" or "more accesible than the others on the record".



i find this work to be very mature and consistent evolution of earlier c93, so if you really see and feel what c93 is all about, go for it."

Blackcurrant ninety three

jimjimjimjimjimjijmjimjij | 08/08/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Current 93 continue their transition into neo-classicism / minimalism apace. Herein, Tibet's songwriting makes an intensely personal shift, reaching an almost confessional tone. The fragile and sombre mood of the album is all encompassing and of equal, if not greater, intensity to their earlier more overtly 'doomy' works, and Heeman, Tibet and Stapleton's music is beautifully understated."