Current 93 announce brand new album

David Tibet was a central figure in the British post-industrial "esoteric" movement with the bands Nurse With Wound , Coil and Death In June. After a brief stint with Genesis P-Orridge's Psychic TV in the early 80's he formed Current 93, essentially his solo project, but more often than not the result of intensive collaboration with Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton. Another frequent collaborator is the wonderful Michael Cashmore whose sublime solo album Sleep England and collaboration with Antony (Antony And The Johnsons) The Snow Abides are also well worth spending time with.

To say that Current 93 have an extensive back-catalogue is the understatement of the Century and this year marks a notable addition to the already superb collection. Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain is the long-awaited new album from Current 93 and their first album in three years, following Black Ships Ate The Sky. It will be released on David Tibet's new label Coptic Cat.

Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain is the most unique, most unpredictable and most powerful album yet from Current 93 and on it, David has brought together an amazing and bizarre array of talents from artists as varied as Nurse With Wound's Stapleton and Liles, rock god phenomenon Andrew W.K., haunting chanteuse and composer Baby Dee, Grammy award-winning genius Rickie Lee Jones, the beautiful Hush Arbor's Keith Wood, world famous porn-star (and winner of the Best Three Way Sex Scene and Best Group Scene at the Adult Video Network awards) Sasha Grey, Pantalemon's enchanted Andria Degens, guitar-hero James Blackshaw, Cyclobe and Coil's Ossian Brown, NYC legend Matt Sweeney (ZWAN, Neil Diamond, Superwolf), extraordinary percussionist supreme Alex Neilson (Red Krayola, Trembling Bells, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), counter-culture guru William breeze and heavenly cellist John Contreras (Marc Almond, Baby Dee).

The result is unlike any other album. Ever!

In related news, the captivating and lovely Andria Degens aka Pantaleimon has announced some news for us to share. Firstly, on Friday 17th April Pantaleimon will be playing in Brighton, details below:

The Fairtrade Gallery
26 Montague Place,
BRIGHTON, UK

Cost: £7
Playing alongside - Tom Brosseau and Nik Barrel
8pm–11pm; licensed bar
Call: 07990 511576 for info and tickets.
Or go to: www.fairtradegallery.co.uk/april

Andria Degens and James Blackshaw have recorded a video playing on a street corner in the middle of Barcelona…we strongly recommend you check it out!

Pantaleimon Videotapas: www.videotapas.net/html/pantaleimon.html. The video was shot before rehearsals and sound-check.

And another bit of exciting news, Al Cisneros of Om has curated a CD entitled “Transmissions from Sinai”, with all proceeds going to supporting Arthur Magazine’s mission. Al requested ‘At Dawn’ to appear on the CD, which comes from Pantaleimon's “Mercy Oceans” album. The edition is of 1,000 copies, and its release is imminent. Featured amongst the 15 tracks are also contributions by Hush Arbors, Six Organs of Admittance, Current 93, Grails, Sir Richard Bishop and Lichens. To read more about it go here: www.arthurmag.com/store/cds/.

To keep up with all things Durtro/Coptic Cat related visit the Southern website.

Aurora Borealis announce new releases and details of Equinox Festival

Its undoubtedly their busiest year over at AB towers, and they're convinced that putting killer releases out roughly every ten minutes is the only way to defeat the downfall of modern capitalism and stave off the inevitable descent into chaos. Speaking to label owner Andrew, he admits that it has also got a lot to do with the fact that he keeps hearing so much awesome music.

To give you an idea, here is a list of records we can expect from Aurora Borealis in the coming months:

K 11 "Voices from Thelema" CD - an amazing package with 32pp booklet documenting Italian sound artist Pietro Riparbelli's sound work inside Aleister Crowley's Thelema Abbey, dealing in similar sonic textures to Tim Hecker.

ATAVIST "II: Ruined" 2LP - long overdue vinyl edition of this underrated UK extreme Doom masterpiece.

L'ACEPHALE "Malefeasance" 2LP and CD. Finally, the most patient of all the blackened experimental noise litterati will see his magnum opus released, and we have to say its stunning. Beautiful moments sit alongside scenes of evisceration.

HEAVY WINGED ltd LP, "Shaking, Waking". Hot on the heels of their release on RTB records, more monolithic drift and caveman Krautrock from these US lords. This will be followed later in the year by a full LP and CD.

BURIAL HEX returns with a limited split LP with fellow Wisconsin resident ZOLA JESUS. One new style track and one amazing old style track (I'm getting a twisted Martin Denny style exotica from this one...) from BHX, while ZOLA JESUS follow up their amazing singles on Bone Yard and WFMU session with 20 minutes of heavy synth, drones, some beats and a totally killer vocal style. All this and live BHX dates this year at Roadburn and Equinox Festival in London, plus some UK tour action...

SYLVESTER ANFANG II - brand new 2LP and CD. Described by the band as "Satanadelic", the new album sees a more psyched out approach, more akin to psyche rock though with massive doses of unhinged freak folk gri-gri. Don't show your mum the cover.

Also coming up soon:

FAUNA "The Hunt" CD, the second album. Remastered by Mell Detmer and with re recorded drums. The band are hoping to complete an all new record for the end of the year...

RYE WOLVES "Oceans of Delicate Rain" 2LP - hoping to get this ready for the band to take on a small West Coast US tour in the summer.

GRUMBLING FUR "Furrier" LP/CD (feat members CIRCLE, GUAPO, ALEX TUCKER...) - too much to say about this... mind blowing.

JOURNEY TO IXTLAN s/t 2LP - can it be true? Will it ever see the mystic light of day on vinyl? Will it really come with a patch?

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR new CD/LP, expected this winter. When you think he's gone too far he manages to go further... and further. Features a 14 year old Polish girl on vocals.

...just a few bits and pieces then...NOT!!!

In other news, Aurora Borealis are honoured and overjoyed to be supporting the Equinox Festival, a three day media arts festival dedicated to contemporary spiritual discovery and mystical traditions. In addition to three full days of talks, performances and film, there will be music performances from Aethenor, John Zorn, TAGC, z'ev, James Ferraro (Skaters) and many more including AB's own K 11 and Burial Hex. It looks set to be an incredible three days here in London, June 12-14th. Check out the festival website.

Edie Sedgwick festival appearance and tour dates announced!

Edie Sedgwick is the transgendered reincarnation of a vacuous Andy Warhol Superstar who died of a barbiturate overdose in 1971. A visionary artist who lay dormant in her host organism until his first epileptic seizure in 2001, Edie appeared at the dawn of the New Millennium to save the world by singing, writing, and producing video about celebrities. Armed with a video projector and an occasional backing band, Edie travels through the dark American night presenting auditory and visual art that honors the likes of Sissy Spacek, Martin Sheen, and other celebrity co­-conspirators.

If smarter, edgier, more ridiculous, more serious, more compelling art has been made, is being made, or will ever be made, Edie is not aware of it. Her new album, Things are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer is available now through the very awesome Dischord Records.

In other exciting news, Edie Sedgwick will be heading across the pond to the UK and mainland Europe this April after being invited to play the prestigious Hinterland Festival in Glasgow. The festival takes over fifteen venues, over two days (April 30th and May 1st 2009), around the city and fills them with over 100 bands, including our dear Edie Sedgwick. Edie will be playing on Thurs April 30th, details of the times and venues are not released to the public until the day of the event. Two day "early bird" tickets are currently on sale, for a limited time only, exclusively from the Hinterland Website.

For a full list of the tour dates, please visit the Southern website.
For purchasing the album please visit the Southern Records webshop.

Japanther and The Paper Chase at SXSW

This year's SXSW festival is almost upon us. The infamous showcasing event kicks off on Wednesday 18th March through to Sunday 22nd March.

If you are attending then there is one very important date for your diary, FRIDAY 20TH MARCH and this is why....



THE PAPER CHASE
The Parish
10pm
214BE (6th St)

AND...

JAPANTHER
Headhunters
12:05am
720 Red River St (8th St entrance)

The Paper Chase will no doubt be spinning some new songs from the upcoming album on Southern Records, Someday This Could All Be Yours (Volume 1) and Japanther will be performing their short sharp blasts of punk rock including songs from their upcoming album on Truth Cult entitled Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt.

Enjoy!

Southern Roadburn Line Up With Neurosis And St. Vitus

The gargantuan 10th annual Roadburn festival in Holland is so close it's almost possible to smell the amplifiers warming up and the beer brewing.

Since 1999 Roadburn has been reknowned for being a gathering place for like-minded bands and fans-the heavy rock underground's annual general meeting. The weekend of April 23rd-26th sees many of our beloved Southern bands take to the Roadburn stages in order to worship at the altar of the mighty riff.

Neurosis are not only playing Roadburn- they've been invited to bring their Beyond The Pale festival from the states, personally inviting bands to play and hosting their own stage at the 013 venue as an event within the event. This honour bestowed by the lords of Roadburn is in recognition of their iconic status stemming from years of toil and graft in the underground scene.

Those bands already included in the line-up for the Beyond The Pale stage are: Earth / Skullflower / Grails / Tribes Of Neurot

Also distorting, droning, dirging and dooming from Southern this year will be: apocalyptic musical manifestations from Wolves In The Throne Room who have been invited back for the second year running,
the sometimes fierce, sometimes haunting (the always hard to categorize) Rose Kemp, avant-Noisemakers Guapo, post-doom dirge with haunting epic overtones brought by Winchester Club, the improvisational, instrumental noise-rock trio Grey Daturas, Akimbo and their menacing, flaming, voluminous rock, the cathartic doom landscapes of Asva, the psychedelic space rock of US Christmas, Southern Lord's drone metal kings Om, Aurora Borealis' blackened electronic alchemist Burial Hex and last but by no means least, Neurosis' Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till.

The underground cult guitar hero Scott "Wino" Weinrich joins the fray not only performing his recent solo album Punctuated Equilibrium, but with a newly reformed and much missed St. Vitus, last seen in 1995 and soon to be seen headlining the Friday at Roadburn.

Further details, full line up and forums are at the Official Roadburn website and the Roadburn Official Myspace.

Last year's Roadburn was my first experience of the festival and a top notch one at that. 2008's festival boasted a fantastic line up though looking at this, I think 2009 will top it as their most successful yet!

Look out on the Southern website for an exclusive Roadburn themed podcast and I will be sure to report back about my experience of the festival soon after. After all, I am already uncontrollably excited at the prospect of going! Until then...

Initial Supersonic festival line up announced...including Nancy Wallace and Zu!

SUPERSONIC 2009 24TH – 26TH July Birmingham UK

Crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences combining music, art, film and cake.

"Of this welter of well organised, wisely curated festivals (ATP, Faster Than Sound, Sonar, Greenman) perhaps the best organised and most wisely curated was Supersonic. Plotted by Birmingham promoters Capsule, 2007's Supersonic inhabited the nexus where metal, folk and noise met."

Plan B Magazine

"Supersonic, in our opinion the best festival in the world right now"

Rock-A-Rolla Magazine

”AS British music festivals go, Birmingham’s annual Supersonic event is the best kind of mixed musical bag, a dizzying assortment of avant rock textures and Heavy Metal thunder on a bill which swings from the sublime to the ridiculous without once seeming ostentatiously eclectic.

The Wire

Since 1999 Capsule has been instrumental in the transformation of Birmingham, Britain's Second City, from a cultural backwater to one of the most important ports-of-call on the international experimental music circuit. Champions of all things across the avant-garde spectrum, Capsule are curators, promoters and fans of the finest music, revealing the otherwise indescribable connections between contemporary music and art, crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences.

Organisers of the illustrious Festival are please to announce the first confirmations - including HEAD OF DAVID who bring their driving bombast to proceedings for the first time in 23 years - for this year’s festival, which will take place in Birmingham on 24TH - 26TH of July 2009.

Now in it’s 7th year, the event will once again take place at the Custard Factory utilising the many rooms for music, art and film.

Additional confirmations will follow in the upcoming weeks, but the line-up is shaping up to be another extravaganza - and already includes two bands from the Southern family...the wild avant futuristic jazz of ZU (Ipecac) and one of the finest folk vocalists NANCY WALLACE (Midwich). As usual highlighting the highly eclectic booking policy of the festival.

Initial line up :

Head Of David/ 65 Days of Static / Atomized/ Berg Sans Nipple / Caribou / Cave/ Chris Herbert / Diagonal / Earthless /Flower & Corsano Duo / Genghis Tron / Growing / Iron Lung / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Master Musicians Of Bukake/ Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / Pram / PRE / Scorn / Skullflower/ Theo / Venetian Snares /Zu / ZzZ’s

Many more to be announced over the coming months

Tickets go on sale early April from:

www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Further info on artists/hotel deals tec

www.supersonicfest.com

More information regarding Nancy Wallace and Zu can be found on the Southern Website.

Speak Your Brains - Part 2

As promised, here is the second installment to our special feature "Speak Your Brains!" where we called upon our beloved bands on Southern Records to speak their brains and tell us about their experiences in 2008 and their forecast for 2009. Without further ado, here it is (in alphabetical order)...

Hawnay Troof - The one, the only...Vice Cooler

Complete this sentence: "2008 was the year that I ..........was not expecting much for, but hoping for the best."

What album from 2008 will you still be listening to at the end of 2009, and why?

Sean Kingston's single Beautiful Girls

Which artist do you most want to see get the recognition they deserve in 2009?

Kate Geck, George Chen, Brendan Fowler and Jonezin

Where will we find you in 2009?

Mostly at home working on catch up work--- but supposedly mid year with peaches on tour and then another world tour in the fall/ early winter!

Japanther - Ian Vanek (drums, cassettes and vocals)

Complete this sentence: "2008 was the year that...I toured the world and finally started enjoying the drums again."

What album from 2008 will you still be listening to at the end of 2009, and why? Skuffed Up My Huffy by Japanther is timeless to me right now and Bent Outta Shape Stray Dog Town

Which artist do you most want to see get the recognition they deserve in 2009? Ninjasonik, Cerebral Ballzy, DJ Dirty Finger, DJ Rusty Lazer.

Where will we find you in 2009? All of the world in art museums and in punk dives. At beaches and in after hours. Lets dance!

Mothlite - Daniel O Sullivan (vocals, compositions)

Complete this sentence: "2008 was the year that I .........Released some records including Mothlite: The Flax Of Reverie, Guapo: Elixirs and Æthenor: Betimes Black Cloudmasses. Made a few recordings that have yet to be released including Grumbling Fur: Furrier, Æthenor: Faking Gold & Murder, New Mothlite record, The Big Pink album (on 4AD), Miracle (with Steve Moore from Zombi), Sunn O))) vs Ulver (in Crystal Canyon, Oslo). Delivered a score for the BBC Storyville documentary "I'm Not Dead Yet". Played a load of gigs with Guapo, Æthenor, Mothlite, Sunn O))) and Alexander Tucker... etc."

What album from 2008 will you still be listening to at the end of 2009, and why?

I liked Alex's last one. That's about it. He can translate what he wants to express through music so much quicker than anyone else around at the moment.

Which artist do you most want to see get the recognition they deserve in 2009?

Jack Shirt.

Tartufi - Lynne Angel (Guitars/Vocals)

Complete this sentence: "2008 was the year that we ..........Followed a magical llama into a land far, far away where our pockets turned into blowholes and our minds into space shuttles. Five months later, our hairs much longer, we emerged to the call of a mystical sea creature waving flags a plenty and showering sparks. The flags turned into a path as we transported pure tonnage and traversed many a line. Then, content and within a basket woven from words, we stoked the fire and roared our refrain: "This year is upon us quite literally above us and thankful are we to be home, safe and free." i.e....Recorded Nests of Waves and Wire with Tim Green, speed-toured the United States as gas prices dipped to 1988-sville, started a Rock School for 4-7 year olds with the hilarious and totally famous Paco Romane, and signed with Southern Records [that's you!].

What album from 2008 will you still be listening to at the end of 2009, and why?

Paper Airplanes - Scandal Scandal Scandal Down In The Wheat Field. This album is one of the most interesting and complex records we have heard in a long time in terms of composition, arrangement, and style. The lyrics are pure poetry, the structure immense, and the musical choices mind-boggling. We heart this one wicked bad.

Which artist do you most want to see get the recognition they deserve in 2009?

Low Red Land - they are fantastic and one of the hardest working bands in the bizz. AND! They all shave their heads! So no more hair in the drains clogging everything all up! These fellas are conscientious objectors to hair, man!

Where will we find you in 2009?

All over this damn place! Touring the US, UK and EU promoting Nests of Waves and Wire....and potentially under your bed. Or out on the rooftop overhang staring back in the kitchen window at you staring out.

Once again, a huge thanks to all of our bands who took part in this installment and the first.

For more information about any of the aforementioned bands visit the Southern website.