Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain [Vinyl]

Current 93 | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl (August 11, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Coptic Cat
• ASIN: B002IW62EQ
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,280 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Double vinyl LP pressing. 2009 album from the Experimental/Industrial outfit, their most unique, unpredictable, and powerful release yet . Mainstay David Tibet has brought together an amazing and bizarre array of talents and created an album unlike any other. Eight tracks. Coptic Cat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars C93 keeps the darkness brewing., June 22, 2009

By 

CRAZOTOLOGY (Joplin, MO. (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain (Audio CD)

Whatever you wanna call c93, Gothic, folk, avant rock, experimental, ambient, whatever...this is a really good band. David Tibet is hard not to like....such an unusual singing presentation. Aleph AT Hallucionatory Mountain is a little more "rock" than prior albums, but there is still a folky melodica to this album that C93 fans love. All of the weirdeness and psychedelic darkness is here as always. Get it, or get into it. C93 is awesome!

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Put Cashmore Back In The Game, Coach!, June 15, 2009

By 

Philippe Landry (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain (Audio CD)

With all the financial and creative contributions that went into this release it should have been titled Aleph At Participatory Mountain. Get it? In some places it feels a little like Lucifer Over London and in other places it feels like a warm up before practice. This album sounds really aimless and whatever cathartic and tumultuous exclamation point this was supposed to be it just never happens; all the brief stoner rock is nice but it's not sustained. What IS awesome about this album is that through all this directionless haze you can detect hints of Bobby Beausoleil's spirit from Lucifer Rising. Moreover Tibet's lyrics are forever appreciated in any context so even if the music isn't happening the words are picking up the slack.

They really shouldn't have hyped this album as much as they did: It is not an epic. I was expecting to experience a symphonic orgy of Coptic goodness and instead I got some splashes of overdrive/crunch/fuzz guitars, sometimes-drumming and dashes of resonant noise. Every track feels like something wonderful is going to happen...and...it never does. "Not Because the Fox Barks" is the only exception and it is a powerful and sustained effort all the way through. Maybe if all the other guitars were actually distorted to the point of Slayer or Cannibal Corpse the picture would be complete, but the distortion is just pleasant like cheap digital distortion. Everyone keeps saying this is the noisiest C93 album since their early tape loop stuff but really it isn't. The absence of Michael Cashmore really makes a difference, too. In some spots the guitars sound like *gasp* modern rock radio: Cashmore's inventive neo-folk will be missed until his next collaboration with David. Sadly, it's a tame effort for what looked like a promising line-up. I was pulling for this one!

In the end it feels like a red velvet cake I once made: decadent, sloppy, luxurious, falling apart, messy, formless, etc. Five stars for Tibet's lyrics, three for the music. Would have worked better as an EP.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent as always, May 30, 2009

By 

Jonathon M. Rose (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain (Audio CD)

I've only been listening to C93 for about a year, so this is their first new release for me to buy, well pre-ordered actually. I've found their music very beautiful, soft and meditative with occasional bursts of noise with great power and passion. Tibet's voice is very unique to say the least and his vocal delivery is a bit unusual but highly effective, this album I think is his most melodic "singing" yet also his most intense. This is not a mellow folk album, if you were hoping for another "Soft Black Stars" type disk you'll probably be disappointed. If you thought that "Black Ships Ate The Sky" was too noisy, you probably will not like this album. It is essentially a metal album, and I love it. Apparently, early C93 where all quite noisy disks, but they're hard to find, and obscenely expensive so I haven't gotten any of them. So I guess this is in a way a return. I was a little nervous when I saw the large amount of guests on the disk, thinking it would be similar to the guest vocals on "Black Ships" which while some were good I thought there were too many of them and will sometimes skip ahead to the next Tibet vocal track. That was not the case this time around, the guests are in the background and saved mostly for the last track in a chorus like piece. The album is generally pretty heavy and being accustomed to Tibet's vocals with soft music (As on Of Ruine or Some Blazing Stare) I was greatly impressed on how well his vocal work matched the more intense music, very passionate, very intense. Actually I saw a review in a metal mag of the album (Revolver I think) and the author noted that it was one of the best vocal performances of the year and proof that you don't have to scream to be effective. The lyrics are typically cryptic and dreamlike. Very good, as always. It is refreshing to see a Christian artist who can write. This album is highly recommended for any C93 fan, people who enjoy experimental and heavy music. Not a bad place to start from either, though an earlier disk might be more representative of their music. This one however is excellent, buy it.