Concert starts at 20:00
A missing link in the chain of the Saint Ghetto programme of the first 10 years is now finally coming to Bern. Current 93 is a British band with just one constant member, the enigmatic David Tibet. Since the early 1980s, he has been gathering people around him whenever he wants to create a new work or put on one of his rare live performances. Unconventional characters such as Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), Baby Dee, Little Annie, John Balance (Coil), Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, and Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) have each joined the ranks of Current 93 for a few years. Celebrities like Nick Cave, Björk, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marc Almond, Rickie Lee Jones, and John Zorn have been guests on albums once or even several times.
David Tibet’s artistic universe has always been large and comprehensive; it was about more than just driving his own band project forward. Over the years, he has run several labels and book publishers, discovered Antony Hegarty, and released Antony & The Johnsons’ first record. He was also the one who made the legendary “first lady of folk” Shirley Collins accessible to a young audience, which finally led to her releasing her first new album after 40 years in 2016 and starting to perform again.
Stylistically, David Tibet has kept making great changes with Current 93: initially clearly positioned within the industrial music genre, he quickly began to drift into mysticism and a religiously charged musical realm that no one had occupied before, but which would attract many imitators. A slow shift towards a kind of British neo-folk began in the late 1980s, but it clearly appealed to a young, progressive audience, inclined to the darker side of the musical landscape. Current 93 has always active been since it was formed, staying the nom de guerre for all David Tibet’s musical activities. The mere fact that he kept gathering new people around him stopped Current 93 from becoming stuck in a rut or going round in circles. The current cast consists of: David Tibet, Reinier Van Houdt, Andrew Liles, Alasdair Roberts, Aloma Ruiz Boada, Michael J. York and Ossian Brown.
