Amid an oversupply of industrial-pop crossbreeds saturating the marketplace throughout the 1980s and 1990s, numerous ensembles upheld the avant-garde ethos that defined industrial music at its inception. The Psychic TV network alone generated a host of inventive figures, among them David Tibet of Current 93, whose work merges Gothic chanting and spectral atmospherics with industrial soundscapes built from tape loops and synthesizers while simultaneously embracing boundary-dissolving Gothic folk. Although Tibet maintains no fixed bandmates, he regularly collaborates with a consistent circle that includes former Psychic TV associate John Balance, better known for his contributions alongside Peter Christopherson in Coil; Fritz Haaman, previously of 23 Skidoo—an offshoot, like Psychic TV, of the seminal early industrial group Throbbing Gristle; Steven Stapleton, recognized for his Nurse with Wound projects; Rose McDowall from Strawberry Switchblade; and Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, another ex-Psychic TV participant. Stapleton ranks among the most consistent contributors, appearing on nearly every Current 93 release, a gesture reciprocated when Tibet assists Stapleton on the majority of Nurse with Wound recordings.
Tibet, Balance, and Haaman first appeared as a trio in 1983 with the Laylah Records single “Lashtah.” Through the close of the 1980s, Tibet, drawing on shifting configurations of these associates, maintained an intense recording schedule that yielded more than two albums annually for both Laylah and the Maldoror imprint. Entering the 1990s, his pace moderated and the music grew quieter, incorporating acoustic folk elements rendered in their most ominous forms. Activity accelerated again in the 2000s as fresh Current 93 material was produced and earlier work reissued. In 2005 Tibet also created a bottle label for the Absinthe liquor company. Both Black Ships Ate the Sky and Sleep Has His House appeared on Durtro Records in 2006, followed by Inmost Light in April 2007; the latter signaled a fresh trajectory for Current 93. Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain arrived in 2009 amid additional endeavors that encompassed Tibet’s art exhibitions and live performances. While retaining its predominantly acoustic, dreamlike character, the album broadened his instrumental range and introduced genuine electric, nightmarish rock textures, featuring guest contributions from guitarist James Blackshaw, Rickie Lee Jones, and Andrew W.K. Tibet subsequently launched the side project Myrninerest with several Current 93 associates, including Blackshaw and Andrew Liles; their debut, “Jhonn,” Uttered Babylon, was recorded in tribute to Jhonn Balance of Coil and issued in 2012.
Current 93 maintained an occasional live presence before resuming studio work in 2013. I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell emerged in March 2014. Following a brief tour, Tibet released the two-track, thirty-five-minute EP The Moons at Your Door the next year. He devoted periods to painting, continued touring with Current 93, and pursued writing along with further art exhibitions over the ensuing three years. In fall 2018 the band issued The Light Is Leaving Us All on Spheres.
