If A City Set Upon A Hill by Current 93
Jordan Hoban | April 21, 2022
Album art for A City Is Set Upon A Hill.
When covering Current 93 you have to make certain lapses in grammar. You have to use more kennings, more fork-like words that tumblecrumble from your fat little fingers. You have to keep the image of a cat always in your heart, and the thunderous flapping of birdwings weaving portents of an apocalyptic future of bright dead stars in your mind. But if I write like that, it’s pretentious.
Current 93 has been performing for over 40 years, crafting a particular, uniquely British and visionary form of “patripassan pop.” Fronted by the enigmatic David Tibet, artist, poet and strange fiction aficionado, the band delivered their 82nd release (yes, 82), If A City Is Set Upon A Hill, continuing in the apocalyptic vein of their previous album, The Light Is Leaving Us All.
Inspired by visionary poets like Thomas De Quincey, William Blake and magick’s own Aliester Crowley, If A City Is Set Upon A Hill is another prophetic vision of a future damned by progress; the old ways are forgotten, and the new ways cannot fill the long shadow cast in their wake.
Through the use of lush chamber folk arrangements, Current 93 crafts an atmosphere ancient and beautiful. It’s music that relies on nostalgia for a past that never existed, except in the minds of the Romantics. But it’s hard not to find yourself pining for that same imagined past. However, the album isn’t naïve, but instead a response to the suffering and corruption of the present world.
Like many of their albums, If A City Is Set Upon A Hill should be listened to in full and with an open mind. Actually, try to empty your mind as much as possible before putting in your AirPods, then go on a hike and consider the eroding landscape, the scraps of garbage in the river, the cigarette butts that dot the mountain trails like slender stones and the stench of livestock ready to be slaughtered.
It’s music for Spring, enjoy it.
