[all hail the mighty comus!]
...Ruminating over this record, I tried in usual obsessive fashion to actually craft out my enthusiasm in words, of course failing miserably...I then rummaged through my old drawer of music-related strangeness and other obscure paraphernalia...And to my great joy, found this telling and um, "descriptive" little blurb from the Aquarius records crew, who did a much better job describing the records' dark, twisted britishness than i'll ever be capable of: Read it, hear it, and weep!
REVIEW:
"What has to be our favorite British pagan folk psychedelic prog rock album ever (in other words, quite possibly our favorite album ever, period!) is finally available again on cd, and in a gorgeous Japanese mini-lp gatefold sleeve to boot, with the disc itself all state-of-the-art remastered, sounding great.
THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty.
And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers.
Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus.
Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip" (on First Utterance). And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later.
And never would I have thought that a record as old as me, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like I said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! Still ranks as one of our all time favorites. Christians, beware!"
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(-And oh, this would be an appropriate time to remind you good folks that this marvellous slice of vinyl is actually being reissued, -not on vinyl,alas!-but on high fidelity compact disc....So, get it!...Listen! And be afraid...!)
-----------------lots of love, --[[ the X]]--
LISTEN YE!:
[Comus- The Bite]
posted by the X at 4:53 pm
14 Comments:
excellent stuff...one of my favourites...the most evil, most ecstatic vocal noodlings around... everything drips...
-Yeah,man,they're f***ing hardcore...!! ;)
(musick to listen in the dark...)
A fine record/CD to be sure; please do not ignore theior 2nd album, "To Keep From Crying" on Virgin UK (still only an LP, I suspect). Roger W also made solo records for Virgin UK, in the 70's. "The Bite" is a good choice. always reminds me of Roger Chapman, from Family.
Comus are intensely leeringly amazing. You get the same feeling of a soul-penetrating sort of evil which is miles away from the conventional ideas of evil, as you get reading Arthur Machen.
Thanks for the offer of tips, hints and recommendations on Norway, that's really nice of you. Not going until August but it's great to know some advice abounds. It's funny, my boyfriend was telling me about your blog a few weeks ago, he'd been reading it. You've got lots of good stuff on there - Looking forward to reading it in more depth.
All the best,
H.
-yeah, it's that kind of sloooowly creeping uneasiness that you get from, say, films like "Don't Look Now", which aren't really "scary" at *all* when you first start watching, then you're slowly being sucked into this *mood* more and more, and you start feeling something is really really twisted and creepy and wicked and *wrong*, even through the sun is shining and the birds are singing...genious!;)
(and,PS- i'm in the process of setting up a "contact me" address on the sidebar of the page...only my luddite brain won't let me understand *how* i do it, so i'm waiting for some techie help to sort me out...!)X
True, Nicholas Roeg is a true master of that sick, dark feeling beneath your heart. A couple of days ago I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time. It got me in the same way too. Shudder. It seems like a key component is that the horror has to be coupled with beauty.
Apropos Nic Roeg, would you recommed i checked out "Walkabout"? -Only vaguely remember reading about the ending of the film in an article somewhere, the "drowning on dry land"-bit, (-if that *was* the correct film, i might have mixed it up with something else!-) always been interested in that whole "Aborigine culture/myths vs. modern(exploitative/destructive)society"- theme, but sadly i suspect it would be hard to come by the film in stores here, so would have to order it online...
Yes walkabout is an amazing film, it captures very well the white horror of the Australian landscape. I definitely recommend it if you can get hold of it. Another excellent film in the same vein is Werner Herzog's 'Where the green ants dream', such an amazing film. Tragic mess what Australian settlement has wrought upon the indigenous cultures. What very little is left of them, they who actually understand and live harmoniously within their environment unlike most of us.
-Yeah, always been fascinated by that culture...(well,by all indigenous/non-colonial cultures,really)-I think we had a guest-exhibition over here just some years ago,by an autralian-aborigine artist, but i might be wrong to remember the art as traditional, it might've been more contemporary/experimental...The technique they use,that of little dots in different colours/circles to form larger patterns/shapes, must predate western "pointillist" techniques with thousands of years!!:)
-And is it true,that many of these "traditional" artists still live in poverty and are exploited by US art buyers who buy their pictures for next to nothing, and then sells it in the US for millions? That's pretty grotesque...:(
-Note to self: Nag my local artfilm venue to screen Walkabout and Rabbit-proof Fence!!(Another of those films i'd wanted to see for a long time now!!)
-And yeah, Herzog =excellent...!(Saw his "Caspar Hauser"-film a long time ago,really powerful stuff...)
-Ah,there's so much good cinema out there, what a pity that only the most commercial stuff gets out to our "ordinary" cinemas...Well,thank god for "artfilm" venues,eh?;)
...Thanks for stopping by!//-X
[p.s.-how did he find me? haven't advertised the blog much!-would be fun to know,i love all those little coincidences and stories!]:)
It's true about the overseas buyers exploiting Aboriginal artists, and local buyers too, it's sickening. During the early eighties there were a number of white Australian artists who tried to sort of attach themselves to Aboriginal art, getting into it on a formal level. Then there were some big shows ie in Paris and New York, and the French I know rejected the white rip-off artists outright, but embraced the Aboriginal art as what they saw as the logical 'next step' to the sort of primitivist abstraction that was fashionable at the time...so absolutely no regard for the artist's intention, but appreciation on the basis of cultural imposition. Completely offensive. Aboriginal art is so heavily laden with sacred symbolism and history; the black and white dots are called Dhuwa and Yirritcha and function like yin and yang. The whole of Australia is divided into dhuwa and yirritcha, and if you are born in a yirritcha area you can only paint white dots and vice-versa. The Aboriginal use of painting to convey cultural history is far more interesting to me than the fickle wanksta trend-surfing of art investors.
Matthew found your site through pounding system, through evergreen daze. He noticed you were from Norway and checked it out, as he is coming with me to the Sunnfjord.
It's quite amazing isn't it, how lines between minds keep drawing themselves.
(-ah,sorry,i must check my comments-boxes more often!!...didn't see you'd replied here before now!!;)
-Interesting!-I'll see if i can find out more about this now...It's such an old culture!(Remember hearing,asa kid,from my friend K.who went to a Steiner/Waldorf school,lots of indigenous creation myths,among them some aborigine ones,especially a story about a giant rainbow snake or something...)
-And the Ayers rock,isn't that a sacred site for them?
(the olympic committee here wanted to build a luxury ski hill right on a mountain that's sacred to the samis!-they would've done it,too,if some organisation against minority discrimination hadn't intervened...it's a fucking disgrace...!)
-Yeah,it angers me when vulnerable and already half-exctinct cultures are being exploited by speculators just like that...grrr.
(on a tangent,when we hosted the winter olympics over here,in 1994,the sami culture was heavily borrowed upon when they needed symbols for the opening ceremony...i suspect the same was the case with the aborigines and the Aussie olympics,if my memory is correct?)
-It's just sickening,that for every festive speech,*then* of course there's so many praising words,but in reality it doesn't mean shit,and the harsh reality doesn't compute...:(
-Ah,yeah,funny how one,on here,almost instinctively/subconsciously seem to end up finding so many like-minded people,linking within linking,until it all ends up intertwined and strangely,in these cases,i feel like the sum of collective consciousness/thoughts and meme-swapping/creating is growing larger than its components,so that 2+2=6,but it's all good- for we are all fertilising the virtual community with new inspiration and the exchange of ideas etc...It has certainly almost reinstated my faith in activism and culture bending,for every bad site on the interweb there's 50 excellent ones,let's hope the evil ones cancel each other out in the end...We need positive vibrations.(Um,can you tell i've been drinking!*LOL!*-Sorry,i'm on a big fluffy hippy tip today,feeling a bit smashed from last night,hehe..ouch!:-/
It could be a beautiful thing...Let's hope commercialism doesn't kill blogging as it did with all other forms of underground expression...Hey,it's a new year so maybe it's time to be a *little* optimistic and naive...!
(-And good luck with your stay in S.!-Trust me,this country can be so appallingly boring and backwards and predjudiced and grim...but it can also be open and friendly and curious and fun- and i hope you get to see a little of that side aswell!...:)
-and as i said,if there's anything i can do to help or you need recommendations and hints,just mail me and i'll be happy to rant away about everything peculiar or interesting you might like to hear/see/experience/taste/whatever...:)
-cheers...and happy days...// - X
The other night a friend and I were ruminating on the possibility that the internet, and in particular the sort of culture which is supported/generated by weblogging, could facilitate a human evolution towards telepathic faculties, which seem to be future-latent in our physiology already (and maybe even past-latent too, like your appendix...maybe it depends where you come from...)
I would love to hear stories/recommendations/possibilities about Norway, anything. Already learning a lot of things from reading yer blog!
-H.
PS Email me if you like; secret00theatre@yahoo.com.au and I'll reply from my real email address - if you want to save rummaging around in your comments boxes!
-Yeah,thanks...will do!!:)
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