Hypnopazūzu – Create Christ, Sailor Boy

A transformative union of two idiosyncratic tellers, Hypnopazūzu sees Current 93 speller David Tibet joining forces with the eternal Youth, famed not only for his work as bassist with Killing Joke but for production and collaborative work with an outlandishly eclectic list of artists from Alien Sex Fiend to Paul McCartney. Together, they’ve created a singular hallucinatory vision that marries symphonic splendour to indignant gnostic intensity – Create Christ, Sailor Boy draws in, and down, masks terrestrial and celestial and summons a collection of songs unlike anything either artist has created previously.

“I first met Youth in the very early ‘80s at a club called the Bat Cave in Soho; I asked Youth to play bass on the first C93 album, Nature Unveiled, which he did,” relates Tibet on this partnership. “Then we probably didn’t have any contact for around 25 years, though I was very aware of what he was doing. A few years ago, I started working with David Bianchi, who put C93 on for two nights at London’s The Forum venue. He managed Killing Joke—and Youth and I met again through Bianchi. Youth suggested I go to his London studio and record an album with him. So I did… and we did!”

Together, these two again manifested their sticky alchemy, with Youth’s ornate and dramatic arrangements sliding into and around Tibet's vivid hypnagogic visions to end up in a psychic picnic hinterland that is as sumptuous as it is colourful in its opulence. Nothing was discussed between them about how the album would sound, with just their Names guiding their intuitive journey into SweetDreamSound. “The album worked organically: Youth created the music, and I wrote the lyrics, and it all worked as beautifully as we knew it would” notes David, “There was no plan—it was spontaneously channelled by both of us from The Spheres above. Youth is the master, and only he can tell you how he summons such extraordinary music. I just sit and watch in delight and amazement. He is an Archōn!”

“The magical side of that first C93 album was difficult for me—seven years bad luck!” recollects Youth. “But having reconnected with David a few years ago, I become aware of his great canon of work, his command of expression and his mastery with words, so I was inspired and keen to work with him again, and had a specific sound in mind.”

Tibet’s luxurious kosmoi sliding slyly onto peaks of intent and intoxication on the album, and songs such as the Galactic Sexiness of ‘The Sex Of Stars’ and the Cuneiform Cuteness of ‘The Auras Are Escaping At The Forest’ show him, backed by the emotive and expressive power of Youth’s arrangements, as a conduit turning unspelled grammars into grimoires. Nonetheless, Tibet stresses that his mode of expression here do not mark a departure from his areas of exploration in Current 93: “There is no difference in terms of the ideas and the dreams and the spheres I used in this album and in this project to anything I have done with any of my other faces. They are all the same face, all 93 of them!”

“The group’s name Hypnopazūzu brought together 3 beings, and 2 languages, that move me and delight me and trouble me. Hypnagogia. Hypnos. Pazūzu. The Coptic language. The Akkadian language,” he explains. “Youth kindly allowed me to choose the name, on the basis that we called the album Create Christ, Sailor Boy, which was a line of mine that he liked, and which opens the album.”

“Music-wise I wanted something analogue, psychedelic and authentic, timeless yet also contemporary,” adds Youth. “In some ways I wanted the music to be invisible so you only hear the stories. The main instruments are Moog synth and my Vox Repeater vintage guitar as well as many acoustic elements and some digital elements too. It's very personal… I've composed, played and engineered pretty much all of it, with minimum of assistance from my team. The inspiration, of course, comes from many sources of art, literature and film culture in general, but also the esoteric.”

Transcendent, tumultuous, and tricky, Create Christ, Sailor Boy is the sound of two spirits skipping as one to create a sidereal glimpse into uncounted cartoons. With a London date planned for October, it seems likely this partnership will be a fruitful one, both in this realm and other playgrounds. “I am happy always to work with Youth in any way, forever and for ever and aways and in all ways” stresses David. “I wait for my Ouija Board Planchette to receive his Mind’s Eye Text.

– Jimmy Martin, with David Tibet whispering occasionally into his AngelWitchEars

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