Dearest all:
a VeryVeryVery Happy email from me for 4 reasons:
Firstly, I and my beloved Jessica Chappell are engaged—as some of you already know—and will be married in August 2012, GodWilling. We are OverMoon and SoSoSo ecstatic and delighted and in love.
Secondly, my dear friend of so many years Antony Hegarty is curating this year’s Meltdown at London’s South Bank in August—the same month Jessica and I will get married. Antony has invited my new group Myrninerest to co-headline Saturday 4 August at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with my lovely friends and colleagues Cyclobe.
Thirdly, I am SunShipped to have contributed a painting of mine to the Lovely White Columns' art auction.
Fourthly, one of my favourite artists, Andrew Gilbert, has a major show in NYC opening and I append details.
I have never been as happy as I am today—though I will be much happier still when August comes.
Full details below.
David Tibet and Jessica Chappell to marry in August 2012
I and Jessica Chappell, my fiancée, are OverMoon to announce that we are getting married in August 2012, in England. We first met at C93’s two London shows at the Forum in February 2010, and became very close very quickly. By February 2012, just before the small C93 tour of Europe, we were seriously discussing getting married. Unbeknown to Jessica, I had already commissioned my friend, the remarkable Amy Phillips (website • Facebook), to make an engagement ring for Jessica using red gold, platinum and moonstones, with Coptic text specific to us engraved on the inside and outside. Going down on one knee, I proposed to her on 8 April in Berlin at a Spanish restaurant called Vivolo at Am Zwirngraben 11–12. We were staying at the Park Inn in Alexanderplatz and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat and chanced on Vivolo. It was the night before C93 played the Volksbühne; I had considered proposing to her from the stage, but the rest of C93 thought it might be a little strong. However, I did announce we were engaged from the stage, jumped off it and ran to her seat on the front row, kissed her and then went back to carry on with the concert. I dedicated “Not Becuse the Fox Barks” to her on that night and the remaining nights of the tour as my now-fiancée. I want to thank all of those who have sent such kind messages to me and her when we announced our engaged status on our respective Facebook sites. We are both so moved and joyous.
Myrninerest, Cyclobe, Derek Jarman at Antony’s Meltdown, London 4 August
ALBION—HYPNAGOGUE—GHOST
Hallucinatory Queer British Paganism
We are delighted and honoured to be asked by Antony Hegarty to appear at his Meltdown on Saturday 4 August. Myrninerest perform our debut album “JHONN,” UTTERED BABYLON with our beloved friends Cyclobe co-headlining the event. Also shown will be some films by Derek Jarman which evoke the title of the evening.
Antony has chosen a wonderful and eclectic group of artists to appear including Diamanda Galás, Marc and the Mambas, Elizabeth Fraser, Kenbra Pfahler, William Basinski, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. And I know that more fascinating acts will soon be announced.
Tickets go on sale to Southbank members on 8th May and to the general public on 10th May. Click here to buy tickets.
Below follows the short press release and the long one.
Albion – Hypnagogue – Ghost: Hallucinatory Queer British Paganism (4 August, Queen Elizabeth Hall) brings together David Tibet of Current 93’s new project Myrninerest and Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown’s Cyclobe, making their UK live debut. The evening will also feature four rarely screened Super-8 short films by Derek Jarman, with soundtracks especially composed for this event by Myrninerest and Cyclobe. The combination of Myrninerest’s harrowing and hallucinatory song-cycle about Coil’s Jhonn Balance and Cyclobe’s intense and psychotropic pagan landscapes will conspire with Jarman’s spectral films – described by the artist as “the best of my work” – to transport audiences into a sidereal reverie on England’s haunted Ær.
ALBION—HYPNAGOGUE—GHOST
Hallucinatory Queer British Paganism
MYRNINEREST
Films by DEREK JARMAN
CYCLOBE
MYRNINEREST BIOGRAPHY
MYRNINEREST was formed in 2012 by David Tibet as a new Sphere for him and his friends and family to work within. David founded Current 93 in 1984 and has since worked with such idiosyncratic artists as Nurse With Wound, Nick Cave, Shirley Collins, and Tiny Tim. His long friendship with Antony began when he released Antony and the Johnsonsʼ debut album on his then-label Durtro in 2000. Also a publisher and artist, he recently had an exhibition of his paintings, Magog at the Maypole (Sex of Stars) at NYCʼs prestigious White Columns gallery.
For MYRNINEREST he works with guitarist James Blackshaw, whose extraordinary new album, Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death has just been released on Important records. Highly regarded for his pieces for solo 12-string guitar, nylon-string classical guitar and piano, Blackshaw employs finger-picking techniques to create drones, overtones and repeating patterns, alongside a strong inclination for melody, creating instrumental music that is both intelligent, hypnotic and emotional. In May 2010 Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, invited Blackshaw to perform at All Tomorrowʼs Parties. His music has been presented frequently on national television and radio, and features in the award-winning film Sebbe (2010).
CYCLOBE BIOGRAPHY
Co-founded by long-term partners Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown, Cyclobe released their debut album Luminous Darkness in 1999 and its unearthly successor The Visitors in 2001. Their most recent album, Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window, was released last year to rapturous reviews: its epic centrepiece ‘The Woods Are Alive with The Smell of His Coming’ was commissioned by the Tate St. Ives for their exhibition "Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art”. Thrower and Brown were previously members of the legendary queer esoteric musick group Coil (Thrower worked on Coil's seminal early releases, Brown on their later live and studio incarnations). Their music as Cyclobe leaps from cavernous electronic cacophony to moments of blissful delicacy: with the incorporation of folk instruments such as hurdy-gurdy and tulum, they conjure intense, unfolding landscapes both psychotropic and pagan.
DEREK JARMAN BIOGRAPHY
Derek Jarman (1942-1994), the British filmmaker, painter and writer, was renowned for his fearless meditations on queer sexuality, outsider identity, Blakean poetics and social injustice. His films include Sebastiane (Britain's first ‘out’ gay film); Jubilee (an ascerbic response to the punk phenomenon); and The Angelic Conversation (a dreamlike journey through Shakespeareʼs Sonnets set to music by Coil). After contracting HIV in the late 1980s, Jarman became a formidable exponent of gay rights in the face of widespread political and tabloid panic-mongering. Consequently, his late masterpieces The Last of England and The Garden addressed issues of gay representation, the battle against conformity and the oppression of the individual. His final film Blue (an unchanging blue screen set to music and voice-overs) was made after AIDS robbed him of his eyesight. Jarman died a year later, but he continues to be an inspirational figure in gay and alternative culture.
ALBION—HYPNAGOGUE—GHOST
Hallucinatory Queer British Paganism
DEREK JARMAN: The evening will feature four magical Super-8 short films by inspirational filmmaker and queer artist DEREK JARMAN, opening with A Journey to Avebury, a haunted reverie on Englandʼs sacred past, followed later in the evening by his alchemical dream pieces Sulphur, Tarot, and Garden of Luxor. Soundtracks for the films have been specially composed for this event by MYRNINEREST and CYCLOBE. Jarman once described his Super-8 films as “the best of my work”. It is our great honour and pleasure to present these marvellous and rarely screened short films at Meltdown.
MYRNINEREST, the new Sphere formed by Current 93ʼs David Tibet, present, in their first appearance, the première of their debut album “Jhonn”, Uttered Babylon, a hallucinatory and harrowing work about the life and death of Coilʼs Jhonn Balance as seen through the eyes of his close friend and colleague David Tibet. With all music on the album composed and played by James Blackshaw, tonight Tibet and Blackshaw are joined onstage by Current 93ʼs violinist Aloma Ruiz Boada, Andrew Liles on electronics, and Comusʼ Bobbie Watson on harmonium.
As MYRNINEREST perform, a specially commissioned new film by Davide Pepe about Jhonn Balance—using archival material from David Tibetʼs own collection and photographs supplied by Jhonnʼs father—will be projected behind them.
CYCLOBE present their first ever UK performance, and only their second show since forming in 1999. They will be playing music from their most recent album, the Pan-psychedelic dream-warren Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window, alongside haunting and paroxysmal new works. Co-founders Ossian Brown and Stephen Thrower are joined by Michael J. York (tulum and border pipes), Cliff Stapleton (hurdygurdy), Ivan Pavlov (electronics) and Dave Smith (percussion), plus a very special guest performing a new collaborative piece. Visuals for the performance will be provided by acclaimed artists Alex Rose, Anna Thew and Fred Tomaselli, and include a number of specially made films created by CYCLOBE for the evening.
David Tibet painting at White Columns NYC benefit auction May 2012
I was honoured to be asked by the wonderful White Columns to contribute a painting of mine for their 2012 White Columns Benefit Exhibition + Auction. My painting, a large A2 pastel on black paper titled Sun Sets Between Mountains At Æon, is one of my personal favourites. The list price is $2,200. Bidding starts at $1,100. It is Lot # 57. For more details on the auction, and to see the piece itself, go here. All artwork will be on view at White Columns from 28 April–12 May, and bidding has already started and will finish on 12 May. For tickets or more information please email info@whitecolumns.org or call 212.924.4212.
Andrew Gilbert, C93 sphere, exhibits in NYC, May 2012
Between 4–7 May 2012, Andrew Gilbert, also known as Andrew Emperor of Africa, has his first US solo presentation at the NADA Art Fair, represented by the gallery Ten Haaf Projects (Amsterdam). Andrew has informed David that “The Emperor will be Present as will be The Holy Broccoli from India”. Pictured with this is his painting “The Statue of Broccoli”.
His work will be shown at Booth 10, Center 548, 548 West 22nd Street between 10th and 11th AveNUES, New York, NY. More information at http://newartdealers.org.
“Scottish artist Andrew Gilbert (1980) is an illustrator, painter, storyteller, opinionated military historian, visionary and realist all in one. Whatever his guise, however, one thing is certain: Andrew Gilbert is a creator of fictional universe, of strange and exotic incidents, where real events crop up in the various backgrounds and reveal hidden historical facts, no matter how illogically they all seem linked together. In his drawings and paintings, he expertly operates a time machine that lets him wander through history. Using tangible examples of historical events, he tracks different historical figures and examines their roles and shows who they really were. He shows what they meant for us: often orgies of violence and destruction. He reverses the splendour of military operations, lending them an effect contrary to the received wisdom and moves the misery of expansionism into the focus of attention. (Text by Zdenek Felix)”
Coptic Cat PO box to be discontinued
Coptic Cat and David Tibet have discontinued their PO Box. They no longer have a mailing address. If you wish to send SunFlowers and Tulips, email Coptic Cat and they will send a mailing address.
With Love and Chariots to you all,
David Tibet, 1 V 2012